[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#897605: How to deal with non-functional package in stretch? (Was: Bug#897605: profphd failure in stretch)

[Andreas Tille]

Hi Tanya,

thanks for your comments.

On Fri, May 04, 2018 at 07:11:22PM +0300, merlettaia wrote:
> This is fixed in version 1.0.42-2, and not present in version 1.0.42-1,
> which seems to be latest in stretch (both with tests).
> At patches dir:
> 
>   https://salsa.debian.org/med-team/profphd/blob/master/
> debian/patches/2_remove_perlbrew_usage.patch
> - this disables perlbrew usage (this was temporary, it would be wiser to
> replace this patch with the one which removes if-then-statement completely,
> because this "temporary" fix just confuses and intricates code logic in
> long-term perspective),
> 
>   https://salsa.debian.org/med-team/profphd/blob/master/
> debian/patches/3_fix_indexing.patch - and as far as I remember this fixes
> actual erratic behavior with latest versions of perl, which was the reason
> why that if-then-else statement appeared in profphd code (the main problem
> here is the "$["-magic in perl).
> 
> Other patches fix error or warning messages, which appeared in almost all
> rostlab packages and were not as tricky as this one.

If you ask me the most sensible approach would be to use exactly
1.0.42-2 since this is solidly tested.

> P.S. - I could work on fixing this bug late at the evening or tomorrow,
> because at this moment I have no Debian distribution or VM somewhere
> nearby, and I could check that everything works after I come home. In case
> if Liubov has time for solving this before that and she is not working on
> something else I've added her to CC.

Before you spent some time on removing sensible patches I'd first like
to hear the opinion of the release team whether my argument to use
something tested is better as the minimum diff to the current package
in Stretch.

Kind regards

         Andreas.

-- 
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