spyder dependency on python3-importlib-metadata

[Alexandre Detiste]

Le dim. 11 mai 2025 à 20:20, Julian Gilbey <julian at d-and-j.net> a écrit :
> > I had forgotten that importlib.metadata is part of the standard library

Yes, that is not obvious at all and I had forgotten about the duality
of this package.

So far I've identified 4 similar remaining backports (/original version)
of parts of the standard library:

  python3-importlib-metadata = importlib.metadata,
  python3-importlib-resources = importlib.resources
  python3-simplejson = json
  python3-mock = unittest.mock

They are here [1] now but deserve their own page (naming is hard), as
they are no "Dead Batteries".
  [1] https://wiki.debian.org/Python/Dead%20Batteries#Backports

Many other backports usage has already been removed completely
during the Trixie cycle: unittest2, random2, astunparse ...

It looks like that "mock" has fossilized around Python 3.7 and would
be next to be dropped;
the importlib.* & json backport are still pretty active and should stay

fissix is a copy of removed lib2to3 and should go away at the start of
Forky cycle

Please help identify other backports you know of.

> > Once trixie is released, we can look at this again and potentially discuss with upstream.

I think that this one upstream is fine,
they can decide to drop legacy compat whenever they want.

> 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.

It did ... https://salsa.debian.org/science-team/spyder/-/pipelines/864175
https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?package=spyder

> I'm just building and testing -6 which reinstates and
> fixes your patch, and then I'll upload it.

Thank you, very much for trying again where I failed!

Greetings

Alexandre