[Debian-astro-maintainers] Bug#1023795: Please undo the replace of pgplot with giza-pgplot

[Karl Glazebrook]

Package: libcpgplot0
Version: 1.2.0-1
Severity: important

I would like to reopen bug 869135 (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=869135 <https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=869135>) 

The fact that the package libcpgplot0 implements the cpgplot api using an imperfect imitation library called giza causes no end of grief for users.

Here is a sample email:

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Roberto Abraham <roberto.abraham at utoronto.ca>
> Subject: PGPLOT broken in PDL on Raspberry Pi?
> Date: 1 March 2022 at 1:51:50 pm AEDT
> To: Karl Glazebrook <kglazebrook at swin.edu.au>
> 
> Hi Karl,
>  
> I just tried using PGPLOT in PDL on a Raspberry Pi and it’s totally broken. I installed using ‘apt’ in the usual way. Now I can’t plot points, though I can draw lines, and the screen doesn’t refresh properly (it only paints visible parts of windows so if you draw something with part of a window invisible it doesn’t show up). It seems to use something called ‘Giza’ rather than proper PGPLOT. I looked it up… WTF? PGPLOT has been working amazingly well for decades – zillions of people rely on it. Why on earth replace it in PDL with a crappy imitation now?
>  
> Apologies for the snarky tone but PGPLOT works fine and it was integrated into PDL is a perfectly functional and useful way. It doesn’t need replacing. This is totally infuriating and dealing with it will be a big waste of time.
>  
> Bob
>  

Here is another example of a user who needs ‘the real thing’ doing a workaround

https://github.com/sso-aat/libpgplot-perl/wiki <https://github.com/sso-aat/libpgplot-perl/wiki>

I had yet another email from a user today confused by this issue. It impacts the functionality of the package libpgplot-perl which is based on code I originally wrote

I would say this switch was made in haste, on the recommendation of the Debian giza maintainer who thought it worked OK, was not really tested, and went through because the license was more politically acceptable to Debian.

As demonstrated in my email on bug 869135 the giza implementation is buggy. The responses to my email did not address the points and talked about the political advantages of the switch.

giza does not work.  I would like to see this reversed.  Please remove the libcpgplot0 package and go back to the old libcpgplot one. It doesn’t matter if this is in main or not.

I also think it is bad for one package to be pretending to be another. 

Karl Glazebrook







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