Hi, I attached a diff addressing this issue. I hope it's ok. Since I was there, I also did some minor changes to the man page of the bts script. It seemed to be a bit unclear about who can use it, so I tried to make it more clear that you don't have to be a (Debian) developer in order to use it. There are enough people submitting bug reports who aren't developers at all, AFAIK.
-- . o . Victor Nițu . . o debian.org.ro o o o nightsh @OFTC
diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index a7f07a1..46557ef 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -69,6 +69,7 @@ Recommends: at,
unzip,
wdiff,
xz-utils,
+ file,
${vendor:Recommends}
Suggests: bsd-mailx | mailx,
build-essential,
diff --git a/scripts/bts.pl b/scripts/bts.pl
index 70f8987..c8fc757 100755
--- a/scripts/bts.pl
+++ b/scripts/bts.pl
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ package main;
=head1 NAME
-bts - developers' command line interface to the BTS
+bts - command line interface to the BTS
=cut
@@ -186,12 +186,11 @@ B<bts> [I<options>] I<command> [I<args>] [B<#>I<comment>] [B<.>|B<,> I<command>
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This is a command line interface to the Debian Bug Tracking System
-(BTS), intended mainly
-for use by developers. It lets the BTS be manipulated using simple commands
-that can be run at the prompt or in a script, does various sanity checks on
-the input, and constructs and sends a mail to the BTS control address for
-you. A local cache of web pages and e-mails from the BTS may also be
-created and updated.
+(BTS), originally written for developers, but usable by anyone.
+It lets the BTS be manipulated using simple commands that can be run at the
+prompt or in a script, does various sanity checks on the input, and constructs
+and sends a mail to the BTS control address for you. A local cache of web pages
+and e-mails from the BTS may also be created and updated.
In general, the command line interface is the same as what you would write
in a mail to cont...@bugs.debian.org, just prefixed with "bts". For
@@ -199,7 +198,7 @@ example:
% bts severity 69042 normal
% bts merge 69042 43233
- % bts retitle 69042 blah blah
+ % bts retitle 69042 "new title"
A few additional commands have been added for your convenience, and this
program is less strict about what constitutes a valid bug number. For example,
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