spyder dependency on python3-importlib-metadata

[Julian Gilbey]

Hi Alexandre,

On Sun, May 11, 2025 at 05:49:48PM +0100, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> Hi Alexandre,
> 
> On Sun, May 11, 2025 at 03:27:46PM +0100, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > Hi Alexandre,
> > 
> > Thanks for trying to tidy up Python packages!  Please can I request
> > that in future, before you try dropping dependencies from packages
> > (especially this far into the freeze), that you check carefully why
> > the dependency is present?  In the case of spyder (python3-spyder),
> > the dependency on python3-importlib-metadata is essential, and is used
> > throughout the code; at least the following files require it (via
> > spyder/utils/programs.py), and there may well be others too:
> > [...]
> 
> Oh, I spoke too soon - my apologies.  I had forgotten that
> importlib.metadata is part of the standard library, so it may well be
> that there is now need to import the PyPI version of the library.  But
> as you discovered, there may be subtle assumptions within spyder that
> it is the external version rather than the standard library version
> that is being used.
> 
> Once trixie is released, we can look at this again and potentially
> discuss with upstream.  (Upstream supports lots of versions of Python,
> from Python 3.8 upwards, and they depend on importlib-metadata >=
> 4.6.0, which was incorporated into stdlib from Python 3.10.  Once they
> drop the support for Python 3.8, presumably at some point during the
> next Debian release cycle, it may be easier.)

I had a look at the autopkgtest failures, and it seems trivial to fix
- there was an importlib-metadata dependency still listed in
requirements/main.yml.  Also, -5 hadn't reinstated the
python3-importlib-metadata dependency, so it won't build/test
correctly.  I'm just building and testing -6 which reinstates and
fixes your patch, and then I'll upload it.

Best wishes,

   Julian