[Pkg-electronics-devel] Bug#1008060: pcb: pcb-gtk could suggest pcb-rnd (natural upgrade path when gtk2 phases out)

[debbug2 at igor2.repo.hu]

Source: pcb
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

gtk2 is likely to be removed from Debian in the not too far future, 
#947713.

I am following the development of pcb, and I don't think the project has 
the resources for porting to gtk3 or gtk4 (there are hardly any commits 
these days at all). Which means a gtk2 removal would force users to use 
pcb-lesstif, which doesn't differ only in the GUI toolkit but offers 
reduced GUI functionality (less widgets, less dialog boxes). Or it would 
force users to switch to another layout editor.

Meanwhile pcb-rnd, which once started as a fork of pcb, runs fine with 
gtk4 with latest librnd (already available in Debian sid). pcb-rnd can 
read and write all native file formats of pcb. It has changed and 
progressed a lot since the original fork, but the basic concepts and the 
GUI are still somewhat similar to pcb's so pcb users would find it more 
familiar than e.g. KiCad.

If gtk2 is phased out and pcb won't provide a gtk3/gtk4 HID by then, pcb 
users will either need to "downgrade" to pcb-lesstif or "upgrade" to 
pcb-rnd or learn a totally different branch of EDA from scratch. For 
anyone who installs pcb-gtk, it may be easy to find pcb-lesstif, but it 
may be less trivial to find pcb-rnd as a "natural upgrade path".

Thus I propose pcb-gtk could Suggest pcb-rnd. This would help users learn 
about pcb-rnd as a natural alternative to pcb-gtk, before they are forced 
to change their habits, may pcb fail to port to gtk3/gtk4 in time.



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