Re: Gnulib in Debian

[Reuben Thomas <rrt@sc3d.org>]

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On Wed, 24 Apr 2024 at 01:51, Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org> wrote:

> Reuben Thomas wrote:
> > (not yet in Debian, sadly, as they don't like me "vendoring gnulib", as
> FTP
> > Master calls it, or "using gnulib as other packages like Enchant do, and
> as
> > designed", as I call it).
>
> I assume you are alluding to the mail thread that starts at
> <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2022/11/msg00110.html> ?
>

Yes.


> I haven't read the thread. But you write:
>   "I am the upstream maintainer of libpaper ..., and also a Debian
> Maintainer
>    trying to get a new version of libpaper into Debian."
>

TLDR: FTP Master rejected my libpaper package because it contains gnulib
source files. I pointed out that other Debian packages for which I am
upstream do exactly this and have been accepted, and that it is the
standard way to use gnulib. A few senior Debian Developers said they did
not consider this use of gnulib to be against Debian policy. But FTP
Master's stance appears to be that they will not let any new packages into
the archive that contain gnulib sources (or in general, vendored
sources—they don't have anything against gnulib in particular!). I also
argued that building against Debian's version of gnulib would risk
introducing bugs (I have found that updating gnulib in my projects can make
previously-working code fail).

Is the problem something that affects the package upstream, or only
> something
> that is specific to Debian?
>

It's Debian-specific, though I imagine other distros might also take a
similar stance.

In this case, the solution is for someone else to repackage libpaper
without the offending files (by generating a new source tarball). I have
said I don't want to do this myself; to be honest it's just a depressing
thought to spend hours doing something that makes no sense to me, and that
will potentially cause me bug reports in future.

I do sympathise with Debian's aim here, and the long-mooted "libposix"
project, or rather an extended "libgnu" version—that is, an installable
version of gnulib that one can use like any other library—would solve this
problem for both me and Debian. Maybe I'll summon the energy to tackle some
of the libposix to-do list one day.


> In the latter case, I don't want to interfere with that. Distros package
> the
> software like they want to. Debian, in particular, has hundreds of pages of
> policy documents. It's not my business as an upstream maintainer to
> interfere
> with that.
>

Sure, I'm just complaining, not asking for a solution. I should have been
clearer about that, sorry.

-- 
https://rrt.sc3d.org

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