Re: suggestion: build-blockers field in control file

* peter green <plugwash <at> p10link.net>, 2011-11-29, 19:23:
>Some packages have runtime dependencies on packages that they do not 
>have corresponding build-dependencies for. This leads to the building 
>of uninstallable packages which in turn leads to problems with 
>testing transition of packages.
>
>Currently there are two workarounds for this situation
>
>1: manually alter the package's architecture list to limit building 
>to those architectures where runtime dependencis
>2: add an artificial build-dependency
>
>Neither is ideal, the first must be manually undone if and when the 
>dependencies do become available. The second is an abuse of the 
>build-depends field (the package isn't REALLY needed for building) 
>and causes pacakges to be unnessacerally installed in build 
>environments (both on autobuilders and for those manually building 
>the package) wasting time and network bandwidth.
>
>I therefore propose a new control field for source packages 
>"build-blockers". Autobuilder management systems should generally 
>treat build-blockers the same as build-depends but the systems that 
>actually do the building do not need to take any notice of them.

It doesn't sound completely crazy, but I doubt that implementing such 
field is worth the trouble. How many packages would benefit from it? Do 
you have any concrete examples?

--

-- 
Jakub Wilk

dctrl-tools with autotools

Bug#650648: ITP: kakadu -- kakadu demo tools

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Mathieu Malaterre <mathieu.malaterre <at> gmail.com>

* Package name    : kakadu
  Version         : 6.3.1
  Upstream Author : Dr. David Taubman
* URL             : http://www.kakadusoftware.com
* License         : non-free
  Programming Lang: C++
  Description     : kakadu demo tools

 A comprehensive, heavily optimized, fully compliant software toolkit for
 JPEG2000 developers.
 Now with multi-threaded processing to fully utilize parallel processing
 resources (multiple CPUs, multi-core CPUs or hyperthreading). You can select
 the single-threaded processing model from v5.0 and before, or a new
 multi-threaded processing model (requires only a few extra lines of code in
 your application).
 Kakadu is a complete implementation of the JPEG2000 standard, Part 1, -- i.e.,
 ISO/IEC 15444-1. This new image compression standard is substantially more
 complex than the existing JPEG standard, both from a computational and a
 conceptual perspective.
 Kakadu also provides a comprehensive implementation for several of the most
 useful features from Part 2 of the JPEG2000 standard, including general
 multi-component transforms and arbitrary wavelet transform kernels.

Bug#650668: ITP: tardiff -- Tarball comparison tool

Package: wnpp
Owner: Axel Beckert <abe <at> debian.org>
Severity: wishlist

* Package name    : tardiff
  Version         : 0.1
  Upstream Author : Josef Spillner <josef <at> coolprojects.org>
* URL or Web page : http://tardiff.coolprojects.org/
* License         : GPL
  Description     : Tarball comparison tool

  TarDiff compares the contents of two tarballs and reports on any
  differences found between them. Its use is mainly for release managers
  who can use it as a QA tool to make sure no files have accidently been
  left over or were added by mistake. TarDiff supports compressed
  tarballs, diff statistics and suppression of GNU autotool changes.

There is a ptardiff command in the package perl, but it can only diff
tar balls against directories, not tarballs against tarballs.

Tardiff is also written in Perl, but does not use Archive::Tar but the
command tar itself.

Bug#650688: ITP: pyjavaproperties -- Python implementation of java.util.Properties

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: "Hans-Christoph Steiner" <hans <at> eds.org>

* Package name    : pyjavaproperties
  Version         : 0.6
  Upstream Author : Jesse Noller <jnoller <at> gmail.com>
* URL             : http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyjavaproperties/
* License         : PSF (Python Software Foundation) License
  Programming Lang: Python
  Description     : Python implementation of java.util.Properties

 This module is designed to be a python equivalent to the
 java.util.Properties class. Currently, the basic input/output methods
 are supported, and there are plans to add the XML input/output
 methods found in J2SE 5.0.
 .
 Fundamentally, this module is designed so that users can easily parse
 and manipulate Java Properties files - that's it. There's a fair
 number of us pythonistas who work in multi-language shops, and
 constantly writing your own parsing mechanism is just painful. Not to
 mention Java guys are notoriously unwilling to use anything which is
 cross-language for configuration, unless it's XML, which is a form of
 self-punishment. :)

Work-needing packages report for Dec 2, 2011

The following is a listing of packages for which help has been requested
through the WNPP (Work-Needing and Prospective Packages) system in the
last week.

Total number of orphaned packages: 396 (new: 7)
Total number of packages offered up for adoption: 138 (new: 0)
Total number of packages requested help for: 65 (new: 0)

Please refer to http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/ for more information.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following packages have been orphaned:

   dhelp (#650441), orphaned 2 days ago
     Description: online help system
     Installations reported by Popcon: 500

   kerneloops (#650687), orphaned today
     Description: kernel oops tracker
     Installations reported by Popcon: 41223

   libihelp-ruby (#650439), orphaned 2 days ago
     Description: Ruby console contextual help
     Reverse Depends: libihelp-ruby
     Installations reported by Popcon: 19

   pica (#650442), orphaned 2 days ago
     Description: System administration program similar to PIKT
     Reverse Depends: picalib
     Installations reported by Popcon: 12

   picalib (#650440), orphaned 2 days ago
     Description: Set of PICA helper scripts and configuration files
     Installations reported by Popcon: 12

   rlplot (#650271), orphaned 3 days ago
     Description: Generate publication quality graphs
     Installations reported by Popcon: 189

   tunapie (#650287), orphaned 3 days ago
     Description: Lists audio and video streams from Shoutcast and
       Icecast
     Installations reported by Popcon: 200

389 older packages have been omitted from this listing, see
http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/orphaned for a complete list.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

No new packages have been given up for adoption, but a total of 138 packages
are awaiting adoption.  See http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/rfa_bypackage
for a complete list.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the following packages help is requested:

   apache2 (#646208), requested 40 days ago
     Description: Apache HTTP Server
     Reverse Depends: aegis-web apache2 apache2-dbg apache2-mpm-event
       apache2-mpm-itk apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-mpm-worker
       apache2-prefork-dev apache2-suexec apache2-suexec-custom (181 more
       omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 60221

   apt-xapian-index (#567955), requested 668 days ago
     Description: maintenance tools for a Xapian index of Debian packages
     Reverse Depends: adept ept-cache fuss-launcher packagesearch
     Installations reported by Popcon: 49053

   ara (#450876), requested 1481 days ago
     Description: utility for searching the Debian package database
     Installations reported by Popcon: 102

   asymptote (#517342), requested 1007 days ago
     Description: script-based vector graphics language inspired by
       MetaPost
     Installations reported by Popcon: 2905

   athcool (#278442), requested 2592 days ago
     Description: Enable powersaving mode for Athlon/Duron processors
     Installations reported by Popcon: 102

   balsa (#642906), requested 67 days ago
     Description: An e-mail client for GNOME
     Reverse Depends: balsa-dbg debreaper
     Installations reported by Popcon: 277

   bastille (#592137), requested 481 days ago
     Description: Security hardening tool
     Installations reported by Popcon: 277

   boinc (#511243), requested 1057 days ago
     Description: BOINC distributed computing
     Reverse Depends: boinc boinc-app-milkyway boinc-app-seti boinc-dbg
     Installations reported by Popcon: 1855

   cardstories (#624100), requested 220 days ago
     Description: Find out a card using a sentence made up by another
       player
     Installations reported by Popcon: 7

   chromium-browser (#583826), requested 550 days ago
     Description: Chromium browser
     Reverse Depends: chromium chromium-browser chromium-browser-dbg
       chromium-browser-inspector chromium-browser-l10n chromium-dbg
       chromium-l10n gecko-mediaplayer mozplugger
     Installations reported by Popcon: 9396

   cryptsetup (#600777), requested 407 days ago
     Description: configures encrypted block devices
     Reverse Depends: cryptsetup cryptsetup-udeb libcryptsetup-dev
       libguestfs0 libpam-mount ltsp-client mandos-client partman-crypto-dm
       rescue-mode systemd
     Installations reported by Popcon: 7176

   cvs (#354176), requested 2107 days ago
     Description: Concurrent Versions System
     Reverse Depends: cvs-autoreleasedeb cvs-buildpackage cvs2cl cvs2html
       cvschangelogbuilder cvsconnect cvsd cvsps cvsservice cvssuck (8 more
       omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 18149

   dctrl-tools (#448284), requested 1496 days ago
     Description: Command-line tools to process Debian package
       information
     Reverse Depends: aptfs debian-goodies debtree dlocate
       haskell-devscripts javahelper libsbuild-perl linux-patch-debianlogo
       postgresql-server-dev-all simple-cdd (1 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 14801

   debtags (#567954), requested 668 days ago
     Description: Enables support for package tags
     Reverse Depends: goplay packagesearch
     Installations reported by Popcon: 2627

   doc-central (#566364), requested 677 days ago
     Description: web-based documentation browser
     Installations reported by Popcon: 232

   dpkg (#282283), requested 2566 days ago
     Description: dselect: a user tool to manage Debian packages
     Reverse Depends: a2ps acct ace-gperf acl2-doc
       ada-reference-manual-info adacontrol advi advi-examples alien
       alqalam (658 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 118759

   elvis (#432298), requested 1606 days ago
     Description: powerful clone of the vi/ex text editor (with X11
       support)
     Reverse Depends: elvis elvis-console elvis-tools
     Installations reported by Popcon: 385

   fbcat (#565156), requested 687 days ago
     Description: framebuffer grabber
     Installations reported by Popcon: 135

   flightgear (#487388), requested 1258 days ago
     Description: Flight Gear Flight Simulator
     Installations reported by Popcon: 795

   flite (#576327), requested 607 days ago
     Description: A small run-time speech synthesis engine
     Reverse Depends: asterisk-flite brltty-flite eflite flite flite1-dev
       gnustep-gui-runtime gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad pd-flite
       speech-dispatcher
     Installations reported by Popcon: 45680

   freeipmi (#628062), requested 189 days ago
     Description: GNU implementation of the IPMI protocol
     Reverse Depends: freeipmi-bmc-watchdog freeipmi-ipmidetect
       freeipmi-tools libfreeipmi-dev libfreeipmi10 libipmiconsole-dev
       libipmiconsole2 libipmidetect-dev libipmidetect0
       libipmimonitoring-dev (1 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 760

   gnat-4.4 (#539633), requested 1325 days ago
     Description: backport bug fixes from trunk (GCC 4.5)
     Reverse Depends: adabrowse adacgi0 ghdl gnat gnat-4.4 gnat-gps
       libadasockets3-dev libahven1-dev libahven17.0 libalog0.3-base (46
       more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 1338

   gnat-gps (#640532), requested 87 days ago
     Description: Build gnatcoll from the sources of GPS
     Reverse Depends: gnat-gps-dbg gnat-gps-doc
     Installations reported by Popcon: 390

   grub2 (#248397), requested 2761 days ago
     Description: GRand Unified Bootloader
     Reverse Depends: grml-rescueboot grml2usb grub grub-coreboot
       grub-coreboot-bin grub-disk grub-efi grub-efi-amd64
       grub-efi-amd64-bin grub-efi-ia32 (15 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 107089

   gwibber (#573822), requested 627 days ago
     Description: microblogging client for GNOME
     Reverse Depends: gwibber gwibber-service-buzz gwibber-service-digg
       gwibber-service-facebook gwibber-service-flickr
       gwibber-service-foursquare gwibber-service-friendfeed
       gwibber-service-identica gwibber-service-pingfm
       gwibber-service-qaiku (4 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 947

   hfsprogs (#557892), requested 736 days ago
     Description: mkfs and fsck for HFS and HFS+ file systems
     Installations reported by Popcon: 1066

   hibernate (#558739), requested 731 days ago
     Description: smartly puts your computer to sleep (suspend to RAM or
       disk)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 7687

   hotkey-setup (#483107), requested 1283 days ago
     Description: auto-configures laptop hotkeys
     Installations reported by Popcon: 4926

   jove (#470185), requested 1362 days ago
     Description: Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs - a compact, powerful
       editor
     Installations reported by Popcon: 964

   kvm (#479951), requested 1303 days ago
     Description: Full virtualization on x86 hardware (Need help with
       ia64, ppc and s390)
     Reverse Depends: nova-compute-kvm qemubuilder
     Installations reported by Popcon: 2560

   lesstif2 (#551853), requested 771 days ago
     Description: OSF/Motif 2.1 implementation released under LGPL
     Reverse Depends: alliance cmucl-clm ddd dx elk geomview grace grass
       gridengine-qmon hotswap-gui (48 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 16467

   libapache2-mod-python (#516501), requested 1013 days ago
     Description: Python-embedding module for Apache 2
     Reverse Depends: check-mk-multisite dicoweb
     Installations reported by Popcon: 19146

   libcap2 (#534999), requested 886 days ago
     Description: support for getting/setting POSIX.1e capabilities
     Reverse Depends: apache2.2-bin asterisk autodir avahi-daemon bind9
       bind9-host bind9utils diod dnsutils gnome-keyring (82 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 109123

   libnss-db (#624768), requested 214 days ago
     Description: NSS module for using Berkeley Databases as a naming
       service
     Installations reported by Popcon: 2795

   libreoffice (#419523), requested 1690 days ago
     Description: office productivity suite
     Reverse Depends: docvert-libreoffice gnome jabref-plugin-oo
       jodreports-cli libjodconverter-java libjodreports-java libreoffice
       libreoffice-base libreoffice-base-core libreoffice-calc (240 more
       omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 41863

   link-grammar (#556010), requested 748 days ago
     Description: Carnegie Mellon University's link grammar parser for
       English
     Reverse Depends: abiword-plugin-grammar liblink-grammar4
       liblink-grammar4-dev liblink-grammar4-java link-grammar
     Installations reported by Popcon: 12889

   logcheck (#539944), requested 849 days ago
     Description: mails anomalies in the system logfiles to the
       administrator
     Reverse Depends: fiaif logcheck
     Installations reported by Popcon: 5353

   loop-aes-utils (#385614), requested 1918 days ago
     Description: Tools for mounting and manipulating filesystems
     Reverse Depends: partman-crypto-loop
     Installations reported by Popcon: 337

   mdadm (#537993), requested 862 days ago
     Description: tool to administer Linux MD arrays (software RAID)
     Reverse Depends: mdcfg-utils partman-md rescue-mode
     Installations reported by Popcon: 16028

   mediawiki-extensions (#484545), requested 1275 days ago
     Description: set of extensions for MediaWiki
     Reverse Depends: mediawiki-extensions
       mediawiki-extensions-collection mediawiki-extensions-confirmedit
       mediawiki-extensions-fckeditor mediawiki-extensions-geshi
       mediawiki-extensions-graphviz mediawiki-extensions-ldapauth
       mediawiki-extensions-openid mediawiki-semediawiki
     Installations reported by Popcon: 444

   monotone (#574609), requested 622 days ago
     Description: a distributed version (revision) control system; more
       maintainers needed
     Reverse Depends: monotone-doc monotone-extras monotone-server qct
     Installations reported by Popcon: 332

   movabletype-opensource (#572484), requested 637 days ago
     Description: Movable Type and OpenMelody packaging
     Installations reported by Popcon: 42

   mtr (#527482), requested 938 days ago
     Description: Full screen ncurses and X11 traceroute tool
     Installations reported by Popcon: 19426

   nas (#354174), requested 2107 days ago
     Description: The Network Audio System
     Reverse Depends: acm acm4 alsaplayer-nas djplay gbsplay
       isdnvboxclient libaudio-dev libgnuradio-qtgui0 libqt3-mt
       libqt3-mt-dev (17 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 55031

   nfs-utils (#616690), requested 270 days ago
     Description: NFS support files common to client and server
     Reverse Depends: fai-quickstart ltsp-server-standalone
       nfs-kernel-server rgmanager task-file-server
     Installations reported by Popcon: 96950

   nn (#470187), requested 1362 days ago
     Description: Heavy-duty USENET news reader (curses-based client)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 109

   openbox (#566900), requested 675 days ago
     Description: standards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible
       window manager
     Reverse Depends: libobrender21 lxde-core obconf openbox openbox-dev
       openbox-themes
     Installations reported by Popcon: 5205

   openldap (#512360), requested 1045 days ago
     Description: OpenLDAP server, libraries, and utilities
     Reverse Depends: adtool alpine am-utils aolserver4-nsldap
       apache2.2-bin asterisk-modules audispd-plugins autofs-ldap
       autofs5-ldap balsa (207 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 110964

   openscenegraph (#392266), requested 1878 days ago
     Description: 3d scenegraph
     Reverse Depends: fgrun flightgear libopenscenegraph-dev
       libopenscenegraph80 libopenthreads-dev libopenwalnut1
       libopenwalnut1-dev libosgearth-dev libosgearth1 libossim1 (10 more
       omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 515

   openssl (#332498), requested 2247 days ago
     Description: Secure Socket Layer (SSL) binary and related
       cryptographic tools
     Reverse Depends: 3270-common afflib-tools alpine amanda-client
       amanda-common amanda-server anon-proxy aolserver4-nsopenssl
       apache2-prefork-dev apache2-threaded-dev (685 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 113433

   otrs2 (#588363), requested 512 days ago
     Description: Open Ticket Request System
     Reverse Depends: otrs
     Installations reported by Popcon: 178

   piuparts (#584125), requested 548 days ago
     Description: piuparts.d.o is maintainance hungry, please help
     Reverse Depends: elida
     Installations reported by Popcon: 362

   piwik (#448532), requested 1494 days ago
     Description: real time web analytics software program

   plt-scheme (#402589), requested 1816 days ago
     Description: PLT scheme programming environment
     Reverse Depends: minlog
     Installations reported by Popcon: 286

   ppp (#589632), requested 500 days ago
     Description: Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) - daemon
     Reverse Depends: gpppon ipppd kppp network-manager-pptp portslave
       pppconfig pppdcapiplugin pppoe pppoeconf pptp-linux (8 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 48088

   proftpd-dfsg (#519175), requested 996 days ago
     Description: versatile, virtual-hosting FTP daemon
     Reverse Depends: gadmin-proftpd proftpd-dev proftpd-mod-autohost
       proftpd-mod-case proftpd-mod-dnsbl proftpd-mod-fsync
       proftpd-mod-geoip proftpd-mod-ldap proftpd-mod-msg proftpd-mod-mysql
       (5 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 7935

   pyro (#530280), requested 922 days ago
     Description: distributed object system for Python
     Reverse Depends: pyro-examples pyro-gui shinken-core
     Installations reported by Popcon: 921

   quilt (#543541), requested 828 days ago
     Description: Tool to work with series of patches
     Reverse Depends: broadcom-sta-source gcc-4.4-source gcc-4.5-source
       gcc-4.6-source gpib-modules-source gquilt meego-packaging-tools
       mozilla-devscripts nvidia-kernel-legacy-173xx-source
       nvidia-kernel-legacy-71xx-source (4 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 12038

   rng-tools (#630920), requested 166 days ago
     Description: Daemon to use a Hardware TRNG
     Installations reported by Popcon: 594

   sepolgen (#483641), requested 1280 days ago
     Description: A Python module used in SELinux policy generation
     Reverse Depends: policycoreutils
     Installations reported by Popcon: 9544

   serna-free (#640976), requested 83 days ago
     Reverse Depends: serna-dbg
     Installations reported by Popcon: 54

   sql-ledger (#472709), requested 1346 days ago
     Description: A web based double-entry accounting program
     Installations reported by Popcon: 97

   wine (#479659), requested 1304 days ago
     Description: Windows API implementation
     Reverse Depends: dssi-vst libwine-alsa libwine-capi libwine-cms
       libwine-dbg libwine-dev libwine-esd libwine-gl libwine-gphoto2
       libwine-jack (13 more omitted)
     Installations reported by Popcon: 13934

   yasr (#474251), requested 1336 days ago
     Description: General-purpose console screen reader
     Installations reported by Popcon: 57

   zookeeper (#579791), requested 580 days ago
     Description: Information management inside a cluster. Part of the
       hadoop family.
     Reverse Depends: libzookeeper-dev libzookeeper-java-doc
       python-zookeeper zookeeper zookeeper-bin zookeeperd
     Installations reported by Popcon: 5

See http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/help_requested for more information.

Re: libconfig9 for Wheezy?

Hi,

On 28/11/11 12:41, Andrey Ponomarenko wrote:
> The compatibility report for libconfig between libconfig8/1.3.2 and
> libconfig9/1.4.8 versions (see attachment) generated by the
> abi-compliance-checker [1] tool may be of help to upgrade this package.

Thanks. abi-compliance-checker looks very helpful.

On 16/11/11 05:32, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> I don't see the new version of the package on mentors. Please consider
> uploading your new package there, it will then show up on
> http://packages.qa.debian.org/libc/libconfig.html in the 'todo' box
> AFAIUI.

The maintainer has not replied so I have uploaded an initial version of
libconfig9 to mentors.debian.net [1].

No VCS exists, so this is simply git-import-dsc of libconfig_1.3.2-2,
git-import-orig of libconfig-1.4.8 and resolving the conflicts. I will
work on fixing up the lintian warnings over the weekend.

Regards,
Jon

[1] http://mentors.debian.net/package/libconfig

Re: suggestion: build-blockers field in control file

On Wed, 30 Nov 2011, peter green <plugwash <at> p10link.net> wrote:
> Some packages have runtime dependencies on packages that they do not
> have corresponding build-dependencies for. This leads to the building of
> uninstallable packages which in turn leads to problems with testing
> transition of packages.
> 
> Currently there are two workarounds for this situation
> 
> 1: manually alter the package's architecture list to limit building to
> those architectures where runtime dependencis
> 2: add an artificial build-dependency

Why are such things required?

Why not have software which wants to have the dependencies of a package look 
at the dependencies line as well as the build-dependencies?

It seems to me that the package maintainers are already providing the 
necessary information and the people who maintain autobuilder systems just 
need to use it.

I can't imagine that changing lots of packages and keeping track of new 
packages with similar issues would take less work than changing an 
autobuilder.  I also can't imagine that changing lots of packages would be as 
reliable.

--

-- 
My Main Blog         http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog    http://doc.coker.com.au/

Re: suggestion: build-blockers field in control file

[Russell Coker]
> Why not have software which wants to have the dependencies of a
> package look at the dependencies line as well as the
> build-dependencies?
> 
> It seems to me that the package maintainers are already providing the
> necessary information and the people who maintain autobuilder systems
> just need to use it.

Hmmmm.  Do you mean:

    (1) The buildd should parse debian/control prior to building, and
    delay the build ("dep-wait") if any binary package Depends line
    would not (yet) be satisfied?

    (2) The buildd should not upload a build until every binary package
    in the built .changes file is installable?

    (3) The buildd should edit the .changes file to exclude binary
    packages that are not installable, upload _that_, then put the rest
    of the binary packages in some sort of hold queue?

    (4) ???

(1) is problematic for several reasons; most specifically, that it is
possible, and even common, for not every package in debian/control to
be built on every architecture.  You can't predict which packages will
actually be built.

(2) is less problematic, but does introduce extra delay into package
build and propagation.  It also would require manual intervention for
any dependency loop.

And (3) seems like a very complex workflow to solve a very small problem.

--

-- 
Peter Samuelson | org-tld!p12n!peter | http://p12n.org/