[R-pkg-team] Bug#1042723: src:r-cran-tmb: fails to migrate to testing for too long: autopkgtest regression

[Paul Gevers]

Hi

[Just in case you didn't know: submitters of bugs in the BTS are not 
copied on replies, so I only saw your message because I went to the bug 
myself]

On Wed, 2 Aug 2023 20:58:39 +0530 Nilesh Patra <nilesh at debian.org> wrote:
> This needs fixing in two stages. The error is:
> 
> | 38s TMB was built with Matrix version 1.5.4.1
> | 38s Current Matrix version is 1.5.3
> 
> So rmatrix's new version needs to go to testing, which is currently
> 1.6.0. So
> 
> 1. rmatrix 1.6.0 needs to go to testing
> 2. tmb needs to be rebuilt against rmatrix 1.6.0

What I don't like about this phrasing is that it doesn't discuss why tmb 
needs rebuilding and why that's not correctly embedded in the package 
relations to begin with. The message you quote above is only a warning, 
so it's not the full story as apparently it's normally OK to have the 
skew (as I would expect). I wonder, does rebuilding just work? I recall 
I saw that tmb had a new upstream release with only three changes where 
one was to be compatible with the new rmatrix [1]. With rebuilding, 
would the right relation of tmb towards rmatrix be embedded in the 
package relations (otherwise r-cran-tmb can migrate to testing before 
rmatrix does, I don't know if that would be a problem).

rmatrix can't migrate to testing before either tmb is fixed (by a 
rebuild but see above or otherwise) or tmb is removed from testing.

If it's clear that rebuilding is the right (Debian) solution (and not 
papering over issues that should be solved), then I can schedule the 
rebuilds. But I'm not convinced yet.

Paul

[1] https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/TMB/NEWS
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