[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#894903: Bug#894898: please drop the runtime dependency on python3-distutils

[Sascha Steinbiss]

Hi all,

On 04/05/2018 02:44 PM, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 05, 2018 at 01:33:09PM +0200, Matthias Klose wrote:
>> Package: src:iva
>> Version: 1.0.9+ds-2
>> Tags: patch
>>
>> please drop the runtime dependency on python3-distutils. It's not needed anymore.
>>
>> patch at
>> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/363348075/iva_1.0.9+ds-2_1.0.9+ds-4ubuntu1.diff.gz
> 
> Same as for ariba - I neither understand the dependency nor the patch which
> does not deal with that dependency.

The new dependency on distutils was introduced because of the following
test failure:

  https://ci.debian.net/data/autopkgtest/unstable/amd64/i/iva/52349/log.gz

(or for ariba)

  https://ci.debian.net/data/autopkgtest/unstable/amd64/a/ariba/42898/log.gz

Since that happened to several of my Python-based packages, I figured
that this was a change in how modules were distributed throughout the
Debian packages that would now require python3-distutils to get the
missing 'LooseVersion' object that was complained about.
As distutils was not found in the error message, I just added the
runtime dep on distutils to fix the problem. I must admit I'm not too
intimately familiar with the Pythonisms here, so that was the end of the
story for me.

I will verify that the dependency is no longer required by running the
autopkgtests locally and remove it with my next upload.

Thanks for the notification!

Cheers
Sascha