[Pkg-gmagick-im-team] Bug#659259: imagemagick: "convert" falls back to /usr/bin/rsvg which is removed upstream, potential for mass FTBFSes

[Scott Howard]

Package: imagemagick
Severity: wishlist

This is a heads up about a pending problem coming down the pipe.

imagemagick's "convert" command for svg files uses an internal
converter found in libmagickcore?-extra, which is recommended by
imagemagick. However, the buildds do not install recommends, so it
falls back to /usr/bin/rsvg to act as the converter. Many packages
convert upstream's svg icon to a pixmap for debian menus (.xpm per the
menu policy)

rsvg upstream has removed /usr/bin/rsvg from their latest release, so
builds will fail when /usr/bin/convert no longer can find
/usr/bin/rsvg.  "convert" will also fail on user systems that have
librsvg2-bin installed and not the recommended package
libmagickcore?-extra.

Would it be possible to have a virtual package: libmagickcore-extra
which is provided by the current SONAME of libmagickcore?-extra? This
way we can depend on that and don't need to bump our build
dependencies for this internal library that we don't interface.
Alternatively, would it be possible to bump libmagickcore?-extra to a
"depends" level relationship? If I want to convert svg files, and I
don't have "Recommends:" installed by default, I could be confused as
to why it doesn't just work and not easily figure out I need the
libmagickcore3-extra package.


I found this when the package I maintain in Debian suddenly FTBFS on ubuntu:
https://launchpadlibrarian.net/92231198/buildlog_ubuntu-precise-i386.librecad_1.0.0%2Bnolibs-1_FAILEDTOBUILD.txt.gz
and the imagemagick bug I filed in ubuntu:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/imagemagick/+bug/929573