[Pkg-crosswire-devel] Backports inclusion

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

2009/6/1 Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden at fastmail.fm>:
> Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote:
>
>> I was aware about bibletime and Qt4.4 issue on hardy and that it
>> requires backports enabled but because of this reason I was thinking
>> to have separate PPA for the bibletime/hardy. Because now:
>>
>> 1) backports are enabled for all hardy - karmic
>> 2) not everyone wants to use backports
>> 3) it is only needed for 1 package in 1 distribution
>> 4) there needs to be additional instructions on how to add backports
>
> 1) True, but this enables them *only* for building in the PPA.  Users of
> our non-Hardy packages do not need to enable backports to use them.
>

Building and linking, hence possible run-time requirements (well we
know one on hardy already)

> 2) True, but no problem.  Everyone does not *have* to use backports :)
>

Except if our packages don't work. People then go on and enable
backports and then their system get's even more unstable.

> 3) True.  It is needed, for that one case for which we had a specific
> request for a package from existing BibleTime users -- so I added it.
> Where is the problem with that?
>

No problem there except that the change affects all future builds of
all packages.

> 4) True, we should add info on enabling backports for Hardy users.  We
> can probably just link to existing documentation at
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu#Adding%20Other%20Repositories
> and specify the include the deb line for Hardy backports
                                                            ^^^^^^
>
>  deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-backports main universe
                                                            ^^^^^^

Well enabling jaunty backports on hardy machine would result in some
funky stuff happening ;-)
>
> that we suggest Hardy users add.
>

yeap.

> Is there actually an *harm* for non-hardy users in leaving the PPA with
> backports enabled?  Can you be specific on what that harm is?  If not,
> then it's simpler for everyone to have just one Crosswire PPA for end
> users to come to, not several, IMO.
>

I went to re-read policy about backports and they say generally
API/ABI breakage is not allowed, unless "only small amount of apps"
are affected and they simply rebuild those in backports.

So no, I don't know of current packages that might bring harm of not
having backports enabled on Intrepid & Jaunty while using backports at
build-time.

> The only possibility for problems I can think of is that backports might
> contain updated libraries that SWORD/Xiphos/BibleTime use and so, if
> built in a PPA with backports enabled, they would have dependencies on
> those newer libs.  But I don't actually know of any libraries currently
> in *-backports that would affect us in that way.  Do you know of some?
> If they do exist, can we simply add manual dependency checks for them,
> with a relevant version number, and so prevent the automated dependency
> on the very newest version(s)?
>
> Jonathan
>

I don't know of such, but backport's wiki suggest that it is a possibility.

For the sake of having one PPA for users I have a two new different proposals:

1) Copy the hardy-backport Qt into our ppa (might be just a little
suspicious for users.......)

2) Enable back ports only while building bibletime on hardy and keep
it turned off for the rest of the time.


-- 
With best regards


Dmitrijs Ledkovs (for short Dima),
Ледков Дмитрий Юрьевич