[debian-mysql] Bug#1031863: libqt5sql5-mysql: incompatible change in libmariadb3 breaks kontact, needs upstream fix in libqt5sql5-mysql

[Paul Boddie]

On Sunday, 26 March 2023 03:29:00 CEST Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
>  For the record, I have now patches both for 10.3 and 10.5:
> 
> https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mariadb-10.3/-/merge_requests/36
> https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mariadb-10.5/-/merge_requests/13
> 
> The upstream PR has not been accepted:
> https://github.com/mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-c/pull/219
> 
> Some +1 might help get these included in next uploads.

I gave your original message a +1, which I imagine is what I am supposed to do 
in GitHub's convoluted interface. I find the upstream treatment of the issue 
to be less than reassuring: to work around some other problem, they have 
decided to break something else. Then again, I personally chose to ignore and 
avoid MySQL in my own projects many years ago due to the lacklustre record of 
its maintainers.

> Currently there isn't that many people helping with MariaDB
> maintenance in Debian. If you want to contribute, please consider
> helping by:
> 
> - Fixing some other bug listed at
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?repeatmerged=no&src=mariadb&sr
> c=mariadb-10.6&src=mariadb-10.5&src=mariadb-10.3&src=mariadb-10.1 - Review
> open MRs at
> https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mariadb-server/-/merge_requests
> - Review recent commits at
> https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mariadb-server
> 
> Thanks!

I appreciate your efforts, so I thank you again for pursuing this matter. 
However, I have plenty of other demands on my time before I can even consider 
getting involved here, not least another Debian packaging effort that is 
largely stalled due to upstream inactivity and insularity, this in turn 
blocking the migration of a public Debian service to a software stack that is 
actively supported within Debian.

This whole affair is a reminder that the end-user often has limited influence 
over precise technological choices. I chose to use Kontact/KMail many years 
ago, and since that decision was made, its maintainers introduced a middleware 
layer along with a dependency on MySQL, giving users very little opportunity 
to exclude this new technology from their environment other than to migrate to 
another application entirely. I imagine that a large proportion of the 
previously happy user base did indeed migrate to something else due to 
increasing dissatisfaction that was casually disregarded by the developers.

The outcome here is a broken mail program that people can only fix by either 
downgrading packages, with potential security and stability concerns, or to 
introduce the fix that the upstream developers refuse to apply. For non-
technical users, such remedies are not readily available, and so they just end 
up with a system that no longer works for them. All because people introduce 
problematic technology and won't stick around to fix it when it breaks.

Sorry to articulate my frustration with the state of modern technology!

Paul