Comment 3 for bug 1705437

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

I haven't verified the details of the versions of "column" as you describe, but it does seem that both bsdmainutils and util-linux are capable of shipping it and so it is disabled from util-linux at the moment. This is derived directly from Debian packaging.

I think it is unlikely that Ubuntu will accept the maintenance cost of a divergence from Debian on this point since this difference only affects a minority of Ubuntu users. If you'd like to see this changed, I think the most productive path forward would be to ask/convince the Debian maintainers of these packages to make this change in Debian. This would best be done by filing a bug in Debian for this. See https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting for information on how to do this.

Please see also https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=908975#10

I'm going to set this bug to Won't Fix to Ubuntu to make it clear that I don't believe there will be any intention by Ubuntu developers to make this change. If other Ubuntu developers disagree then we can reopen the bug. Note that if the change is made in Debian then the change will happen in Ubuntu by default regardless of the bug status in Ubuntu (and the status should then be changed).