Bug#1142815: libipc-shareable-perl is marked for autoremoval from testing

[gregor herrmann]

On Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:24:57 +0200, Edmund Lodewijks wrote:

> On 2026/09/14 06:39, Debian testing autoremoval watch wrote:
>> libipc-shareable-perl 1.13-1 is marked for autoremoval from testing on 2026-10-06
>>
>> It is affected by these RC bugs:
>> 1142815: libipc-shareable-perl: t/65-seg_size.t uses insane amount of memory on loong64
>> https://bugs.debian.org/1142815
>
> This package has patches and a Salsa MR, see:
>
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1142815#68
>
> and
>
> https://salsa.debian.org/perl-team/modules/packages/libipc-shareable-perl/-/merge_requests/1
>
> What is lacking for this to be moved ahead? A review?

Someone who applies patches / merges the MR, which means someone with 
the time, energy, and confidence to understand the issue(s) :)

And since the issues and patches are spread across 2 bug reports, 2 
upstream issues, 1 MR on salsa, and now this thread on the maintainer 
mailing list (usually we use debian-perl at lists.debian.org for 
discussions, and pkg-perl-maintainers at alioth-lists.debian.net only 
for package names and BTS traffic and other automated mails, and the 
BTS for discussions about bugs, so CC'd now), people might lack the 
overview, so let's try:


For those not having followed along at home, we have:

* https://bugs.debian.org/1142815 (47-seg_size.t)
   Forwarded to https://github.com/stevieb9/ipc-shareable/issues/65

This bug should actually have been closed, as I disabled the test in 
the last upload, but I wanted to wait for the package to build which 
didn't happen on all architectures, and that's:

* https://bugs.debian.org/1146517 (ppc64el and ppc64)
   Forwarded to https://github.com/stevieb9/ipc-shareable/issues/66


And then we have (thanks for preparing them, Edmund!) different 
patchsets in different places:

* Two for #1146517 (ppc64el and ppc64) in https://bugs.debian.org/1146517
   - not sure if they are still valid?

* The same (?) 2 patches fixing #1146517 (ppc64el and ppc64) in
   https://salsa.debian.org/perl-team/modules/packages/libipc-shareable-perl/-/merge_requests/1
   but this commit also contains a third patch for fixing #1142815 
   (47-seg_size.t).

* And at https://github.com/stevieb9/ipc-shareable/issues/66 we have
   2.5 patchsets, the same (?) two for fixing #1146517 (ppc64el and
   ppc64) as in the MR and the bug report, plus the third one fixing
   #1142815 (47-seg_size.t).
   And then a different pair of patches for #1146517 (ppc64el and
   ppc64), using IPC::SharedMem instead of special casing ppc64el and
   ppc64.

And all these patches/MRs contain a lot of text :) and 
TTBOMK (partially) AI-assisted code.


My personal thoughts so far are (and others might disagree):
- I'd also like to see the two bugs fixed, rather sooner than later
   :)
- So it's good to have patches! (Thanks again.)
- There have been no upstream reactions so far; I'd like to keep
   whatever we apply now in Debian as minimal as possible.
- This means I'd rather leave 47-seg_size.t as it is now, and leave
   this fix to upstream. Even if the patch is correct, it needs time
   to review, increases the diff and our maintenance burden, and this
   test has annoyed as often enough already. (And close #1142815
   manually once a package builds everywhere and runs its
   autopackagetests.)
- As for #1146517 (ppc64el and ppc64) I'd rather take the more
   minimal versions of the 2 patches, aka the ones in MR!1 on salsa
   aka the "alternative_*" ones in the upstream issue. Reasoning
   again: less divergence from upstream, it's their decision to adopt
   the change to using IPC::SharedMem (although I like the idea; and I
   also think they have a bug but I'll have to try later …)

So my preliminary proposal is to work from MR!1 on salsa, trim it 
down to just the necessary changes for #1146517 (ppc64el and ppc64), 
i.e. drop the third patch for #1142815 (47-seg_size.t) and revert the 
surrounding changes in debian/, _and_ then have someone with a better 
understanding then me about architectures in Perl review those 
changes.


And now I'm sorry that I've written a wall of text :) But maybe this 
helps us to make progress here.

Happy to hear thoughts and find another pair of eyes!


Cheers,
gregor

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