[Debian GNUstep maintainers] 1st batch of binNMUs for GNUstep transition

[Yavor Doganov]

On Sun, Jul 06, 2008 at 03:06:25PM -0400, Hubert Chathi wrote:
> >> - gnustep-netclasses
> >> - pantomime1.2
> >> - popplerkit.framework
> 
> > Doesn't look like these need to be binNMUed as no binary packages are
> > directly depending on core gnustep libraries?
> 
> Yeah, there are some issues with GNUstep library linkages.  They end up
> not linking (and hence not depending) on the core gnustep libraries.

I believe these upstream bugs cause us trouble (for example,
pantomime1.2 migrated before the GNUstep stack in the previous
transition, which lead to a FTBFS bug filed for testing, as the layout
was different).  It is also (according to my understanding) a Debian
Policy violation when a shared library uses symbols from another
library(ies) but doesn't link with it/them and hence there is no
dependency.

(Fixing popplerkit.framework, for which I believe I sent a patch to the
GNUstep mailing list, will tie all future GNUstep transitions with the
poppler transitions, which is rather unpleasant in general.)

Maybe right now it is not the best time to fix these issues, but would
be nice to settle them out before the Lenny release.

> I guess they assumed that any application that linked against those 
> libraries would already be pulling in the core GNUstep libraries.

Exactly, but this plays us a bad joke sometimes.

> helpviewer.app, I am told, has some serious problems, which Yavor has
> said he would try to fix.

I am confident I'll fix the build problems, but this package is
basically unusable as it doesn't work with the current XML parser.  If I
can't fix that within a reasonable timeframe, we must kick it out from
Lenny, IMO.  TTBOMK, only lynkeos.app has documentation that is supposed
to be displayed by helpviewer.app (if it is able to find it at all...).

In any event, please don't schedule a binNMU for helpviewer.app; it
fails to build and will require a sourceful upload anyway.