Update on removing obsolete GNOME libraries & gtk2 MBF

[Jeremy Bicha]

It's been several months since the last update from the Debian GNOME
team on our efforts to remove unmaintained libraries from Debian. We
have made significant progress in this goal and the removal of
libgnome is within reach. See the charts later in this email.

Also, we have succeeded in removing gtk2 from the default GNOME
install for Buster (as of meta-gnome3 1:3.22+13).

gtk2 mass bug filing
-----------------------------
For Bullseye, we are serious about our intention to remove libglade2,
libgtk2-perl, and pygtk. This is part of a larger effort to reduce
gtk2 use as much as possible. This is a massive project as over 600
packages in unstable are using gtk2 now.

gtk3 was declared stable with its 3.22 release in 2016. gtk3 has many
advantages over gtk2: support for HIDPI scaling, support for Wayland,
CSS theming, better support for non-C programming languages through
GObject Introspection, and more. Practically speaking, gtk2 has nearly
reached its End of Life.

We want to do a gtk2 mass bug filing now. Please contact us if you
would like to help us file all these bugs.

If you use or maintain a GTK2 project, please discuss GTK2's
deprecation with upstream. I believe a majority of GTK2 apps are
unmaintained so you may need to do the porting yourself if you aren't
ready for your favorite apps to be removed from Debian.

Removed from Debian
-------------------
esound
gconfmm2.6
gksu & libgksu
gnome-keyring-sharp
gnome-sharp2
goffice-0.8
gocanvas
libsocialweb
libunique3
mx
opal & ptlib
pygoocanvas
webkit-sharp
webkit-sharp3

libgnome2-perl
libgnome2-canvas-perl
libgnome2-gconf-perl
libgnome2-vfs-perl
libgnome2-wnck-perl
libgoo-canvas-perl
libgtk2-appindicator-perl
libgtk2-unique-perl

Removed from Testing
--------------------
In this section, the parentheses indicate the remaining packages that
depend on them (reverse dependencies). A trailing & is used to point to
libraries that themselves are listed as removed. A trailing !! means that
the removal process has started either through an Intent to Remove bug or a
RM bug.

(gbonds & thawab will be uploaded soon to fix their issues.)

gnome-python (gnome-python-desktop&, gjots2, revelation)
gnome-python-desktop (xword!!)
gnome-vfs (libgnome&)
libbonobo (libbonoboui&)
libbonoboui (libgnomeui&)
libgnome (libgnomeui&)
libgnomeui (gnome-python&, gbonds, gnome-commander!!, gresolver!!,
            linsmith)
libgnome-keyring (libgnomeui&, moonshot-ui, mozilla-gnome-keyring,
                  mysql-workbench)
orbit2 (pyorbit&, libbonobo&)
pygtksourceview (cherrytree, liblunar!!)
pyorbit (gnome-python&)
python-poppler (pdfshuffler)
rarian (gbonds)
webkitgtk (swt-gtk!!, thawab)

libgtk2-gladexml-perl
libgtk2-notify-perl
libgtk2-sourceview2-perl
libgtk2-spell-perl
libgtk2-trayicon-perl
libgtk2-traymanager-perl

Discussing removal
-----------------------------
clutter-gesture

Deferred until Bullseye
----------------------
gconf
gtksourceview2
gtksourceview3
gtkspell3
libglade2
libglademm2.4
libgnomecanvas
libgnomecanvasmm2.6
libgtk2-perl
libunique
pygtk
python-gtkglext1 (xpra)
vte (cdebconf-terminal which is part of debian-installer)

Not removing at this time
------------------------------------
libart-lgpl

On behalf of the Debian GNOME Team,
Jeremy Bicha