Bug#967353: freeciv: depends on deprecated GTK 2

[Tobias Frost]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2022 09:10:03 +0200 Stephen Kitt <skitt at debian.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Aug 2022 20:43:01 +0200, Tobias Frost <tobi at debian.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 29, 2022 at 08:33:12PM +0200, Stephen Kitt wrote:
> > > On Mon, 29 Aug 2022 20:06:12 +0200, Tobias Frost <tobi at debian.org> wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 04 Aug 2020 11:38:27 +0100 smcv at debian.org wrote:  
> > > > > Source: freeciv
> > > > > Severity: normal
> > > > > User: pkg-gnome-maintainers at lists.alioth.debian.org
> > > > > Usertags: gtk2 oldlibs
> > > > > Control: block 947713 by -1
> > > > > 
> > > > > This package has Build-Depends on GTK 2 (libgtk2.0-dev), or produces
> > > > > binary packages with a Depends on GTK 2.    
> > > > 
> > > > (...)
> > > > 
> > > > Upstream says in 3.0.3 (doc/README.packaging):  
> > > > > * Gtk2-client is no longer considered maintained client    
> > > > 
> > > > So I guess the gtk2 client should not be released with bookworm…
> > > > 
> > > > Any thoughts (question directed to the games team)?  
> > > 
> > > It’s gone entirely in 3.0.3, isn’t it? So if you’re upgrading to that
> > > release, it seems the freeciv-gtk package should be dropped (or rather,
> > > turned into a transitional package pulling freeciv-gtk3).  
> > 
> > The client is still there in 3.0.3 (but needs to be enabled manually,
> > at least it builds; not yet there to see if it works…)
> 
> Ah yes, I started with the main branch and didn’t check 3.0.3 thoroughly
> enough.
> 
> However given that GTK 2 is obsolete in general, and the existence of other
> (maintained) Freeciv clients, I don’t think it’s all useful to keep the GTK 2
> client for Bookworm.
> 

After pondering back and forth a bit, I finally made uo my mind and I agree:
We should drop the GTK2 support before bookworm. While there is no urgency, we 
have GTK3 and GTK3.22 directly capable of replacing the GTK2 client, and
GTK2 itself is showing its age…

Bookworm will be supported ~3 years after its release, with an estimated
release of it next summer, this would mean ~mid 2026. While it is not likely
that there will be issues, I don't want to put the burden of fixing 
something upstream stopped actively maintaining on other teams as well. 

Finally, I think the release of a major version is a good opportunity to clean up 
stuff.

-- 
tobi