[Pkg-cmake-team] Bug#1098837: Bug#1098837: cmake 4.0

[Timo Röhling]

Hi Andrea,

* Andrea Pappacoda <andrea at pappacoda.it> [2025-02-24 23:06]:
>Do you think it'd be feasable to package CMake 4.0 for trixie?
Probably not.

1. There are no "big" new features, the major version bump happened
because deprecated features have been removed. So the benefit of 
CMake 4.0 compared to 3.31 is relatively low, but the cost of broken 
backwards compatibility is significant [1], especially this late in 
the trixie release cycle.

2. I maintain backports releases for CMake, so if someone really 
needs or wants CMake 4.0 in trixie, they will be able to install it 
from trixie-backports.

3. Not an important reason, but certainly something to consider: new 
releases in CMake usually come with a few regressions, especially 
with new features or changed behavior of old ones. The 3.31 branch 
just had its sixth patch release and I consider it rock solid.


I will upload CMake 4.0 to experimental, though, so it may not end 
up in trixie, but it will be available soon(ish).


Cheers
Timo


[1] A quick Debian code search with the regular expression

   (?i)cmake_minimum_required\s*\(\s*VERSION\s*([12]\.|3\.[01234](\s|\.))

shows 4155 hits involving 1420 source packages. Patching debhelper 
does not solve the issue either, because it is a behavior change 
that most likely requires a compat level bump.

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