[Python-modules-team] Bug#784513: qtwebkit removal from python-qt4

[Bas Couwenberg]

On 2016-05-24 15:58, Dmitry Shachnev wrote:
> Hi Sebastiaan,
> 
> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 01:07:49AM +0200, Sebastiaan Couwenberg wrote:
>> On Mon, 07 Dec 2015 21:31:42 +0300 Dmitry Shachnev wrote:
>> > I am going to remove qtwebkit support from python-qt4 package in an upload in
>> > early 2015 (but not before January 7th, one month from now).
>> 
>> Will these changes be uploaded any time soon?
> 
> It was delayed only because of QGIS.

Thanks, that was my understanding too.

Now that QGIS in Debian shouldn't be a blocker anymore, will the 
python-qt4 happen before the end of the month or at least in Q2?

>> As long as the WebKit support remains available in the Qt4 packages,
>> QGIS upstream is reluctant to deal with its planned removal. The best
>> way to get them to address issues is to break their builds 
>> unfortunately.
>> 
>> #825091 is the first issue caused by disabling QtWebKit support and 
>> I'd
>> like upstreams help to resolve it.
> 
> WebKit support will definitely be removed from PyQt4 before Stretch 
> freeze.

The freeze is not until early next year, and the initial plan for 
removal from python-qt4 was early 2016, we're almost 6 months in now.

So if I can make a request, please upload python-qt4 as soon as 
possible, so we can use the remaining time until the freeze to get QGIS 
working without WebKit in python-qt4 as well as possible.

> It will be *probably* removed from Qt4, but that depends on how many 
> rdepends
> are remaining.
> 
> There is already WebKit support in Qt5/PyQt5 which is not going to be 
> removed
> any time soon.

Unfortunately switching QGIS to Qt5 is not feasible until the upcoming 
2.16 release, but this is not an LTR and so not very appropriate for 
Debian stable.

Even with the Qt5 support in QGIS 2.16 most plugins won't work with it 
yet, severely reducing the usefulness of QGIS.

My initial plan was to switch to Qt5 with 2.16 and include that in 
stretch, and get the 3.x LTRs into backports whenever they become 
available. The recent discussion on the qgis-developer list convinced me 
to try to stick to Qt4 for stretch to not break compatibility with the 
large plugin ecosystem. The switch to Qt5 only allows us to resolve the 
RC bug and keep QGIS in Debian, but its reduced compatibility makes the 
value of keeping it in stable negligible. Removing the WebKit support 
has much less impact on the plugin ecosystem, but is not without its 
problems either. Mostly due to upstream not supporting this 
configuration yet, simply because WebKit support is still available in 
Qt4 packages (specifically python-qt4).

Kind Regards,

Bas