Keeping the Qt5 stack together: some ideas

[Boris Pek]

Hi everyone,

> So basically we need a way to ensure the Qt 5 stack gets tied together. I can
> think in two possible ways of doing it:
>
> a) Suggested by Adam Majer and improved by Felix Geyer: if package A gets
> built against any qtbase x.y.z lib make it depend upon the version used to get
> the package built by using Build-Depends-Package from deb-symbols(5).
>
> With this solution we ensure that the libs gets tied together, but also apps
> rebuilt against this version. I don't know if there is a real use case for
> apps migrating faster than Qt itself except for simplifying transitions (and
> we still don't know how safe that could be).
>
> We can't use this solution for arch:all packages.
>
> b) Somehow (I think KDE does this) create a variable to be used in
> debian/control so it get substituted at build time against whatever we set up
> in, let's say, qtbase. We can use that variable in the whole Qt stack
> including source packages that build arch: all binaries like translations.
> Docs should not depend on binaries so maybe we need something different there.
>
> With this solution apps building against qt 5.5.1 which use symbols < 5.5.1
> should migrate whenever they are ready, although it's not clear to me we
> really want this. On the other hand it let us tie up arch:all packages.
>
> So before rushing I would like to know if someone sees something I don't here.
>
> I somehow like option b more than a, but I would be glad to be show that a is
> superior (if it is).

How about more simple solution?

c) Provide special empty package with current Qt5 version and add it into
   dependencies of all Qt5-related packages with strict or non-strict
   requirements for a version depending on the situation.

Best regards,
Boris