Bug#654839: paraview should depend on libvtk5-dev

[Mathieu Malaterre]

Hi,

On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Anton Gladky <gladky.anton at gmail.com> wrote:
> We already discussed it some months ago. From my point of view, it is
> not so simple...

Agreed

> At least the list of compiled vtk-libraries in vtk and paraview
> packages is not the same [1] and [2].

That's a totally different point. If VTK use cmake option(s) that
ParaView/VTK does not, then we should really sync those. There is one
pending BTW.
This was my point when I requested to move VTK to deb-sci umbrella, I
believe those two packages needs the same team of maintainer, and a
very close communication.

> Also VTK and Paraview are not usually releasing at the same time (I
> think, Mathieu noticed it somewhere), so it can cause problems.

That's the actual issue here. ParaView is using whatever it's VTK
internal API is. Furthermore ParaView is released on a fixed schedule
(6 months I believe). What this means is that
to be able to use the VTK package for each new ParaView release, we
would need to patch the debian/VTK with any diffs from ParaView/VTK.
This not only require much more manpower but also could introduce some
uneeded ABI/API change. In the past ParaView (as an application) was
using an unstable VTK API (since the library is internal anyway). So
unless upstream confirms this is the right way to go, I would say we
should avoid this solution.

Now the other way around, is also tricky. the debian paraview team
would have to figure out how to build ParaView against a stable VTK.
This means that either:
1. ParaView will not have new VTK feature/bugfixes,
2. Some good soul from paraview debian package, will figure out a way
to backport paraview/vtk changes within paraview application code.

Really it boils down to two things:
- What is upstream position on this ? If upstream really do want to
release  paraview on fixed schedule, with backward compatible code so
that people can build paraview with the latest stable vtk. Then I
would say, go for it. debian/paraview will be a
'paraview-with-stable-vtk' package.
- What really is the advantage of using a system installed vtk for
paraview in debian ? This help release team when backporting security
fixes. So if we compare the potential of security issue in VTK code,
the amount of work is much *much* less than what it would be to patch
paraview and/or vtk at each new release IMHO.


> [1] http://packages.debian.org/sid/amd64/paraview/filelist
> [2] http://packages.debian.org/sid/amd64/libvtk5.8/filelist

This is of course my point of view, and I am open to others.

Thanks for your comments,
-- 
Mathieu