[gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Robert Bradbury]

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It would appear that the pending (0321) mask of Qt3 will break
sci-misc/qcad, sci-chemistry/xdrawchem and x11-misc/glunarclock.

These are fairly significant science packages for which there are no current
(qt4) or "equivalent" packages.  While on one hand it may not do much harm
to mask Qt3 based games packages (which I believe has already been done), it
is entirely another thing when one goes masking significant science packages
for which there may be no substitutes (e.g. qcad and xdrawchem).

So, an end user (e.g. a Gentoo user who is not a Gentoo developer) is forced
to ask:
a) Has research been done to determine whether there are replacements for
these packages and why aren't they suggested in the mask comments?
b) If one is forced to run Qt3 in order to support these older packages, is
there *good* documentation on how to do this (and why isn't this suggested
in the mask comments)?

While I am in general in favor of migrating to the most recent packages,
there are cases where packages will still work reliably well with older
libraries (and would likely work forever if there were "static" build
options).  So before there is a rush to remove ebuilds it should be asked
whether it is possible to produce a static build and/or whether there is a
clear path provided for the retention of "legacy" packages?

Thank you,
Robert Bradbury

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Denis Dupeyron]

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 6:18 AM, Robert Bradbury
<robert.bradbury@gmail.com> wrote:
> It would appear that the pending (0321) mask of Qt3 will break
> sci-misc/qcad, sci-chemistry/xdrawchem and x11-misc/glunarclock.

I'm not concerned but I feel sympathy for those who use these packages
and many others. The decision from the qt project to remove qt3 and
all its dependencies from the tree is suboptimal to say the least. A
library project should be at the service of those using the library,
not dictating to those using it.

That said they were perfectly entitled to make the decision of not
wanting to maintain qt3 any longer. The only advice I can give is that
all disgruntled users and developers create a qt3 project and
adopt/unmask/re-commit the qt3 libraries for maintainers of packages
who need it. I doubt this will happen as this could have been done a
long time ago, but it's never too late.

Denis.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Alexis Ballier]

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On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:46:34 -0700
Denis Dupeyron <calchan@gentoo.org> wrote:

[...]
> That said they were perfectly entitled to make the decision of not
> wanting to maintain qt3 any longer. The only advice I can give is that
> all disgruntled users and developers create a qt3 project and
> adopt/unmask/re-commit the qt3 libraries for maintainers of packages
> who need it. I doubt this will happen as this could have been done a
> long time ago, but it's never too late.

Or like the old gtk-1: completely abandon the package and let the
consumers upgrade slowly. IMHO this is the less annoying approach for
everyone.


Alexis.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Gilles Dartiguelongue]

Le vendredi 12 mars 2010 à 16:59 +0100, Alexis Ballier a écrit :
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:46:34 -0700
> Denis Dupeyron <calchan@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> [...]
> > That said they were perfectly entitled to make the decision of not
> > wanting to maintain qt3 any longer. The only advice I can give is that
> > all disgruntled users and developers create a qt3 project and
> > adopt/unmask/re-commit the qt3 libraries for maintainers of packages
> > who need it. I doubt this will happen as this could have been done a
> > long time ago, but it's never too late.
> 
> Or like the old gtk-1: completely abandon the package and let the
> consumers upgrade slowly. IMHO this is the less annoying approach for
> everyone.

Well the discussion about dropping glib-1 and gtk-1 pops up once in a
while in the herd. The removal hasn't been done yet because we focus
more on packages that pops most on bugzilla for example.

-- 
Gilles Dartiguelongue <eva@gentoo.org>
Gentoo

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Ben de Groot]

On 12 March 2010 16:59, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Or like the old gtk-1: completely abandon the package and let the
> consumers upgrade slowly. IMHO this is the less annoying approach for
> everyone.

Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree. That's
why we have a treecleaners project.

Cheers,
-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux developer (qt, media, lxde, desktop-misc)
______________________________________________________

[gentoo-dev] Re: Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Ryan Hill]

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On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:33:12 +0100
Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On 12 March 2010 16:59, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> > Or like the old gtk-1: completely abandon the package and let the
> > consumers upgrade slowly. IMHO this is the less annoying approach for
> > everyone.
> 
> Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree. That's
> why we have a treecleaners project.

The treecleaners project is tasked with keeping these packages working, and
removing them only if there is no other alternative.


-- 
fonts,                                            by design, by neglect
gcc-porting,                              for a fact or just for effect
wxwidgets @ gentoo     EFFD 380E 047A 4B51 D2BD C64F 8AA8 8346 F9A4 0662

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Ben de Groot]

On 13 March 2010 00:07, Ryan Hill <dirtyepic@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:33:12 +0100
> Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree. That's
>> why we have a treecleaners project.
>
> The treecleaners project is tasked with keeping these packages working, and
> removing them only if there is no other alternative.

No, treecleaners is tasked with either finding a maintainer for those
packages, or removing them from the tree.

Cheers,
-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux developer (qt, media, lxde, desktop-misc)
______________________________________________________

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Samuli Suominen]

On 03/13/2010 01:07 AM, Ryan Hill wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:33:12 +0100
> Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
>> On 12 March 2010 16:59, Alexis Ballier <aballier@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>> Or like the old gtk-1: completely abandon the package and let the
>>> consumers upgrade slowly. IMHO this is the less annoying approach for
>>> everyone.
>>
>> Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree. That's
>> why we have a treecleaners project.
> 
> The treecleaners project is tasked with keeping these packages working, and
> removing them only if there is no other alternative.
> 
> 

That's the ideal situation, unfortunately treecleaners is currently so
understaffed it's not necessarily always true

if a package is broken, and been in treecleaners queue for too long, and
it would be a semi-trivial fix, it simply doesn't get done without manpower

So devs: Please join treecleaners project :)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Matti Bickel]

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Samuli Suominen wrote:
> if a package is broken, and been in treecleaners queue for too long, and
> it would be a semi-trivial fix, it simply doesn't get done without manpower

Because i can't find this info on the treecleaner project page: is there
a bugzilla query for the "treecleaners queue", so others can take a
look/help out?

I have found 4 bugs assigned to treecleaner@gentoo.org, but i'm sure i
missed something.



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Doktor Notor]

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On Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:34:22 +0100
Matti Bickel <mabi@gentoo.org> wrote:

> I have found 4 bugs assigned to treecleaner@gentoo.org, but i'm sure i
> missed something.
> 

If you have time to spare, bugs assigned to maintainer-needed@ and
often rotting in bugzilla for ages despite having patches included will
give you lots of stuff to play with for starters:)

Perhaps the treecleaners alias should watch the m-needed@ bugs,
dunno. :)

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Samuli Suominen]

On 03/13/2010 12:34 PM, Matti Bickel wrote:
> Samuli Suominen wrote:
>> if a package is broken, and been in treecleaners queue for too long, and
>> it would be a semi-trivial fix, it simply doesn't get done without manpower
> 
> Because i can't find this info on the treecleaner project page: is there
> a bugzilla query for the "treecleaners queue", so others can take a
> look/help out?
> 
> I have found 4 bugs assigned to treecleaner@gentoo.org, but i'm sure i
> missed something.
> 
> 

Look also for bugs where treecleaner@ is in CC list.

19 bugs currently, so not that bad at the moment but even some of these
could be saved.

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[James Cloos]

>>>>> "BdG" == Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> writes:

BdG> Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree.

Nonsense.  That attitude only servers to harm the user base.

Leaving them in does not.

-JimC
-- 
James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Maciej Mrozowski]

On Sunday 14 of March 2010 06:09:44 James Cloos wrote:
> >>>>> "BdG" == Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> writes:
> BdG> Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree.
> 
> Nonsense.  That attitude only servers to harm the user base.
> 
> Leaving them in does not.

But leaving them broken and unmaintained in main repository harms Gentoo 
quality and image.
"User base" is welcome to step up and help with maintenance and that's what 
guys in kde-sunsite overlay actually do.

So... patches welcome! Thanks!

-- 
regards
MM

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Ben de Groot]

On 14 March 2010 06:09, James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com> wrote:
>>>>>> "BdG" == Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> writes:
>
> BdG> Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree.
>
> Nonsense.  That attitude only servers to harm the user base.

You're wrong. It serves to protect our users from potentially
broken and vulnerable packages. It ascertains a Quality
Assurance level that we and our users can be comfortable
with.

> Leaving them in does not.

It does, as it opens the users up to unknown security
vulnerabilities and increasing brokenness as bugs are
not addressed.

If Gentoo would stop caring about QA, then we'd be wasting
our time working on making this a better distro.

Cheers,
-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux developer (qt, media, lxde, desktop-misc)
______________________________________________________

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[James Cloos]

>>>>> "BdG" == Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> writes:

BdG> On 14 March 2010 06:09, James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> "BdG" == Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> writes:
>> 
BdG> Abandoned packages do not belong in the portage tree.
>> 
>> Nonsense.  That attitude only servers to harm the user base.

BdG> You're wrong. It serves to protect our users from potentially
BdG> broken and vulnerable packages.

Any user who needs *that* much hand-holding will use a binary dist,
not a source dist.

BdG> It ascertains a Quality Assurance level that we and our users can
BdG> be comfortable with.

No, it does not.  The user base for a build-locally-from-source dist
wants wider access, not just a few packages.  

>> Leaving them in does not.

BdG> It does, as it opens the users up to unknown security
BdG> vulnerabilities and increasing brokenness as bugs are
BdG> not addressed.

Removing the ebuilds does not help that even one bit.  IF they do not
use those programs, they are not harmed even if there is some (real)
vulnerability -- and don't forget that most of the vulnerability claims
are for things which will never happen in practice.  (Which is not to
suggest that upstreams shouldn't code defensively, just that not every
warning is critical enough to loose sleep over.)

BdG> If Gentoo would stop caring about QA, then we'd be wasting
BdG> our time working on making this a better distro.

Removing ebuilds is not in itself QA.  It does not in itself improve
quality.  There has to be a real reason to remove.

Removing a leaf package which has been replaced by its upstream, whether
by a simple rename or by a complete re-implementation or anywhere
inbetween, is a good call.

Removing a widely-used, well-designed and well-managed library and
everything which depends on it, just because upstream has stopped
dealing with bug reports against that version, is not.  The likelyhood
that any significant issues remain in qt3 is small.  The relevant apps
work, have been working and will continue to work.

I will not begrudge the kde team for wanting to support only kde4.

Dropping kde3 in favour of kde4 is just an upgrade.

But dropping qt3 even though packages exist which depend on it and have
not been ported to qt4 (and it *is* a /port/, *not* an /upgrade/) is
simply the wrong thing to do.

It is also OK to mask -- but not necessarily remove -- a package with a
truly exploitable bug; moreso if the package is itself security-related.
That means real exploits in the wild, real attempts to do harm.

The so-called qa team has been acting too robotically.  It needs to show
more common sense and better judgement.  Worry about the real problems,
not the trivial.  Work to fix packages, not to murder them.

-JimC
-- 
James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Fabian Groffen]

On 12-03-2010 08:46:34 -0700, Denis Dupeyron wrote:
> That said they were perfectly entitled to make the decision of not
> wanting to maintain qt3 any longer. The only advice I can give is that
> all disgruntled users and developers create a qt3 project and
> adopt/unmask/re-commit the qt3 libraries for maintainers of packages
> who need it. I doubt this will happen as this could have been done a
> long time ago, but it's never too late.

Didn't we have a graveyard thing/overlay somewhere some day?  Some users
might happily prefer to use stuff that's treecleaned, or removed due
security issues.  If removal of stuff would mean it's dumped in there it
can be easily used by users and more easily readded later afterwards, if
need arises.


-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo on a different level

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[justin]

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On 12/03/10 17:17, Fabian Groffen wrote:
> On 12-03-2010 08:46:34 -0700, Denis Dupeyron wrote:
>> That said they were perfectly entitled to make the decision of not
>> wanting to maintain qt3 any longer. The only advice I can give is that
>> all disgruntled users and developers create a qt3 project and
>> adopt/unmask/re-commit the qt3 libraries for maintainers of packages
>> who need it. I doubt this will happen as this could have been done a
>> long time ago, but it's never too late.
> 
> Didn't we have a graveyard thing/overlay somewhere some day?  Some users
> might happily prefer to use stuff that's treecleaned, or removed due
> security issues.  If removal of stuff would mean it's dumped in there it
> can be easily used by users and more easily readded later afterwards, if
> need arises.
> 
> 

As we have the "overlay depend on overlay" support now, we could easily
put those packages into the sci overlay, if there would be a qt3
support/lib overlay.



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Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Maciej Mrozowski]

On Friday 12 of March 2010 17:17:01 Fabian Groffen wrote:
> On 12-03-2010 08:46:34 -0700, Denis Dupeyron wrote:
> > That said they were perfectly entitled to make the decision of not
> > wanting to maintain qt3 any longer. The only advice I can give is that
> > all disgruntled users and developers create a qt3 project and
> > adopt/unmask/re-commit the qt3 libraries for maintainers of packages
> > who need it. I doubt this will happen as this could have been done a
> > long time ago, but it's never too late.
> 
> Didn't we have a graveyard thing/overlay somewhere some day?  Some users
> might happily prefer to use stuff that's treecleaned, or removed due
> security issues.  If removal of stuff would mean it's dumped in there it
> can be easily used by users and more easily readded later afterwards, if
> need arises.

Yes, it's called kde-sunset and it contains KDE3 and should contain Qt3 
applications (maybe it does, may not all of them though) removed from tree 
recently. It's not graveyard really as some users actively maintain this 
overlay.

http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/kde-sunset.git
(layman -a kde-sunset)

-- 
regards
MM

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Ben de Groot]

On 12 March 2010 14:18, Robert Bradbury <robert.bradbury@gmail.com> wrote:
> It would appear that the pending (0321) mask of Qt3 will break
> sci-misc/qcad, sci-chemistry/xdrawchem and x11-misc/glunarclock.

The mask has already been in place since March 1st.

> a) Has research been done to determine whether there are replacements for
> these packages and why aren't they suggested in the mask comments?

See the discussion in the relevant bugs and on the forums. For qcad
see bug #284896 and for xdrawchem bug #299588. Glunarclock is
unrelated.

> b) If one is forced to run Qt3 in order to support these older packages, is
> there *good* documentation on how to do this (and why isn't this
> suggested in the mask comments)?

Because package.mask is not the right place for documentation.
It does refer to bug #283429, the tracker bug for the Qt3 mask and
removal. This in turn refers to our announcement [1] which mentions
that Qt3 and packages depending on it will remain available in the
community-maintained kde-sunset overlay.

> So before there is a rush to remove ebuilds it should be asked
> whether it is possible to produce a static build and/or whether there is a
> clear path provided for the retention of "legacy" packages?

There is no rush. We first announced this in July 2009 [2] and then
again in December [1]. We have given every opportunity to find
appropriate upgrade paths. As mentioned, users who for some
reason need or want to keep using legacy packages can use the
kde-sunset overlay.


1: http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/msg_f295c1c2d9d70238d289de3a7ed5bf5c.xml
2: http://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev-announce/msg_d851e05567d538b662f34de8dfdb7316.xml

Cheers,
-- 
Ben de Groot
Gentoo Linux developer (qt, media, lxde, desktop-misc)
______________________________________________________

Re: [gentoo-dev] Qt3 mask breaks significant science packages

[Markos Chandras]

On Friday 12 March 2010 15:18:21 Robert Bradbury wrote:
> It would appear that the pending (0321) mask of Qt3 will break
> sci-misc/qcad, sci-chemistry/xdrawchem and x11-misc/glunarclock.
> 
[..]
> 
> Thank you,
> Robert Bradbury
The decision about removing Qt3 has been made 9 months ago, the decision about 
the upcoming mask has been made 4 months ago. So you had all the time to move 
to Qt4. We aint gonna maintain a package ( or library if you prefer ) that has 
been abandoned from upstream a long time ago. So if you still want to use it, 
please add kde-sunset overlay. We dont have neither the manpower nor the time 
to patch/fix/maintainer/etc/etc/ Qt3 anymore. However, we DO offer you like 6 
different versions of Qt4
*4.5.3
*4.6.1
*4.6.2
*4.6.9999
*4.7.9999
*4.7-prerelease ( soon )
*4.9999

Which we actively maintain. We decided to move forward and we are aware that 
few of our users might not like it. If you still want a working Qt3, please 
take care of it on kde-sunset

Thanks

-- 
Markos Chandras (hwoarang)
Gentoo Linux Developer
Web: http://hwoarang.silverarrow.org