[Debichem-devel] Bug#956260: bkchem: should this package be removed?

[Stuart Prescott]

> > What exactly is it blocking?
> 
> It blocks reverse deps from removing their Python 2 packages (or if
> Py2-specific the package at large), which in turn block the removal
> of other packages.
> 
> In the case of bkchem python-pil and python-pmw, which in turn block
> the removal of python-tk.

As bkchem is no longer in testing and the Python 2 version of bkchem can 
*never* migrate back to testing, these rdeps can now drop their Python 2 
packages without making testing more buggy. 

* python-pil is already only cruft and is not in testing. 

* python-pmw can also be removed from testing now as it has no rdeps in 
testing and will be autoremoved soon; it may as well be removed from the 
archive entirely, unless someone wants to upgrade it to the Python 3 version 
just for the fun of it.

(This has been the standard practice throughout the process of removing Python 
2 and is the reason why the bugs are slowly elevated in severity; ideally, we 
never get as far as breaking packages that are in unstable but that is not a 
hard requirement in *any* transition, much less big and messy one like this.)

The Python 2 version of bkchem will not be released with bullseye, so we may 
as well make it easier for those trying to do other things for the bullseye 
release.

*If* a Python 3 version of bkchem appears we can get it into bullseye. I doubt 
that is ever going to appear, however, as that effort is tangled with several 
other changes to modules that bkchem currently ships embedded copies of; a 
py3-bkchem therefore needs to catch up with changes to other modules as well 
as port to Python 3. All this without a test suite to help catch the 
inevitable porting problems.

I say this as a bkchem user who doesn't have a good Plan B :(

regards
Stuart


-- 
Stuart Prescott    http://www.nanonanonano.net/   stuart at nanonanonano.net
Debian Developer   http://www.debian.org/         stuart at debian.org
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