Bug#1126858: matlab-support: Remove Recommends: libgtk2.0-0t64

[Sébastien Villemot]

Le mardi 03 février 2026 à 08:17 -0500, Jeremy Bícha a écrit :
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2026 at 5:17 AM Sébastien Villemot <sebastien at debian.org> wrote:
> > Note that matlab-support being a support package for proprietary MATLAB
> > software, it does not use gtk2 itself, so removing the Recommends is
> > straightforward.
> > 
> > However, the problem is that MATLAB, even in its latest version
> > (R2025b) still relies on gtk2 for some of its functionality, and does
> > not vendor the library but uses the distro-provided one. Hopefully they
> > will remove that dependency in some near release, but even that will
> > not solve the problem for older MATLAB versions.
> 
> Because gtk2 is still in Forky for the Debian Installer, I guess it
> could be ok to keep the Recommends: gtk2 for now too.
> 
> If you have contact with the MATLAB maintainers, it might be good to
> let them know that distros are getting closer to removing gtk2 from
> their main repositories. Arch Linux did that a few months ago
> (although gtk2 was added to the AUR instead).

I got in touch with them and it looks like they will remove the GTK 2
dependency in the next MATLAB release (R2026a).

> Because MATLAB is proprietary, paid software, it's possible for people
> to only have a license to an older version, right? ☹️

Yes, indeed. Licenses are typically tied to a given version (until you
pay for upgrading).

-- 
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀  Sébastien Villemot
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁  Debian Developer
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀  https://sebastien.villemot.name
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀  https://www.debian.org
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