Bug#535645: Bug #535645: Wrongfull removal of ia32-libs-tools
Hi,
* Goswin von Brederlow (goswin-v-b@web.de) [090809 03:54]:
> I'm writing to you in the hope that you can facilitate resolving a
> grievance I have with Joerg Jaspert in his roles as ftp-master and his
> decision to remove ia32-libs-tools in the name of "The Project".
can we please get some input why this package was removed?
removals.txt only states:
[Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:50:16 +0000] [ftpmaster: Joerg Jaspert]
Removed the following packages from unstable:
ia32-apt-get | 22 | all
ia32-archive | 22 | all
ia32-libs-tools | 22 | source, amd64, i386, ia64
Closed bugs: 535645
------------------- Reason -------------------
RoThe Project; Most idiotic breakage ever.
----------------------------------------------
(rest of the mail is left for your information)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Andi
> I started writing ia32-libs-tools 1 1/2 years ago based on my work as
> ia32-libs maintainer and job experience with running Debian as Bi-Arch
> on amd64. Joerg himself encouraged the developement of ia32-libs-tools
> in the REJECTED mail of ia32-alsa-lib (see [1]) and while discussing
> on irc. ia32-libs-tools has been in Debian for all but the initial
> delay of packaing and NEW processing and has steadily improved to the
> fully functional solution it is now.
>
> According to popcon ia32-libs-tools has about 700 users and
> ia32-apt-get about 500 (numbers now falling) and the users are now
> left out in the cold with an inferior solution (ia32-libs) that only
> covers a fraction of the features ia32-libs-tools provides (see
> Background Information below). Rene Engelhard even requested a
> backport to Lenny.
>
> Ia32-libs-tools (all binary packages it builds) does not divert any
> files of other packages, does not conflict/replace with any other
> packages and does not interfere with the functionality of any other
> packages even if installed. Specifically ia32-apt-get does not
> interfere with the package management in any way unless the user
> specifically invokes one of the ia32-... binaries. And even then
> ia32-apt-get does not touch any of the internals of apt or dpkg. There
> is no risk of the package management system getting broken.
>
> There is also no (more) risk of 64bit packages unexpectetly being
> upgraded to 32bit packages of a higher version. The existing package
> had a debconfig option defaulting against this for some time and the
> svn version has a even stronger protection against this. It is still
> configurable and if a user wants to use a 32bit bash (or whatever) on
> amd64 then he can configure that explicitly and it will work.
>
> In short all the complaints raised in the flame fest on debian-devel
> [2] have been addressed and removed from ia32-libs-tools. So I see no
> reason "The Project" could have for removing ia32-libs-tools.
>
> The source is fully licenced under GPL version 2 and all its bugs are
> pending or wishlist like. None of the pending ones are above
> important.
>
> All the information I have about the removal is a conversation on IRC
> and the removals.txt on ftp-master:
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 14:25 < mrvn> Ganneff: ahh, you are awake. So will you accept ia32-libs-tools
> in its benign form it is now?
> 14:25 < Ganneff> *I* will not.
> 14:25 < mrvn> Ganneff: may I ask why?
> 14:26 < GyrosGeier> Ganneff, are there people left who can accept it and who
> might?
> 14:26 < GyrosGeier> (hypothetically speaking)
> *silence*
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.txt
> =========================================================================
> [Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:50:16 +0000] [ftpmaster: Joerg Jaspert]
> Removed the following packages from unstable:
>
> ia32-apt-get | 22 | all
> ia32-archive | 22 | all
> ia32-libs-tools | 22 | source, amd64, i386, ia64
> Closed bugs: 535645
>
> ------------------- Reason -------------------
> RoThe Project; Most idiotic breakage ever.
> ----------------------------------------------
> =========================================================================
>
>
> Please help me understand why Joerg just removed my package and
> hopefully revert that decision.
>
> What I'm asking for is that ia32-libs-tools is allowed to co-exist
> with ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk as it has been for the year before
> Jun 2009.
>
> I'm not asking for ia32-libs or ia32-libs-gtk to be replaced. The only
> reason ia32-libs-tools took them over was that ia32-libs was
> unmaintainable, uninstallable and unmaintained for a year and as the
> then maintainers we decided to abandon it. ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk
> have a new maintainer now so they are his problem.
>
> MfG
> Goswin
>
>
>
> ======================================================================
>
> Background information
> ----------------------
>
> After maintaining the ia32-libs packages for some time the
> pkg-ia32-libs team came to the conclusion that there must be a better
> way to do this. ia32-libs is fragile, needs constant work and uploads
> and the sheer size makes frequently uploading new versions a problem
> for the maintainer and the mirror network. There also is code (and
> more importantly bugs) duplication between ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk
> in Debian, ia32-libs-kde and ia32-libs-scim in Ubuntu and several more
> ia32-libs-* packages build by users. So ia32-libs-tools was born.
>
> ia32-libs-tools took the common elements of all the ia32-libs*
> packages, converting an i386 debian package for use on amd64, and put
> it in a tool anyone can Build-Depend on. So there is only one place
> where bugs have to be fixed or features added.
>
> The reason ia32-libs is fragile and needs constant watching is that
> dependencies, conflicts, breaks are not considered for packages
> included in ia32-libs. Every time a library changes its soname the
> source breaks on update. Given that the sheer size was also a huge
> problem the next step was splitting ia32-libs into multiple packages,
> one package per source package that gets converted (95 of them,
> *juck*), one binary package per binary package that gets
> converted. That way all the existing package relationships could be
> preserved and small individual packages could be uploaded when the
> i386 package changes. This was rejected by ftp-master (see [1]).
>
> In the REJECTED mail Joerg Jasper wrote:
>
> | - How about you do not provide the ia32-foo packages yourself, but leave
> | that to the maintainers? Just provide the tools to *easily* create
> | them at build time. That would be the best way to go. It would enable
> | basically every package (where it makes sense) to have an ia32
> | version, do not double the source code needlessly, etc. Win win.
>
> That is exactly what ia32-libs-tools provides. So in a way Joerg
> himself suggested writing ia32-libs-tools even if that was after the
> fact that I wrote it.
>
> Unfortunately the DAK and wanna-build do not allow uploading a package
> building libfoo_i386.deb, lib32foo_amd64.deb, lib32foo_ia64.deb on
> i386, libfoo_amd64.deb on amd64 and libfoo_ia64.deb on ia64. So while
> the tool would allow that the infrastructure does not. So creation at
> build time is not possible.
>
> Discussing this on irc resulted in the following points being made:
>
> - The conversion process is completly automatic.
> - Having converted debs in the archive is a huge waste of space.
> - The conversion can be done on the users system just as well as
> during build time.
> - Converting packages that already exist in the archive as needed by
> the user removes all the problems of missing security fixes, missing
> libraries, outdated versions, source/binary duplication, space and
> bandwith wasteage.
>
> >From that ia32-archive and ia32-apt-get were born.
>
> Ia32-archive creates a local repository of converted packages that can
> be used directly, exported via http, ftp or nfs or used to build CD
> images that include 32bit support for amd64. Converting all the
> packages included in ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk takes about 800MB
> disk space though. 800MB that are completly wasted if the converted
> packages are only for local use.
>
> ia32-apt-get takes the process one step further doing a complete
> on-the-fly conversion of packages as they are installed. That means
> that if the user asks ia32-apt-get/ia32-aptitude to install
> ia32-libfoo (32bit libfoo) it fetches the libfoo_i386.deb, converts
> the control.tar.gz and data.tar.gz during unpacking and removes the
> tempfiles when done. The only space required is enough temporary space
> to unpack each package.
>
> ia32-apt-get provides the following tools:
>
> ia32-apt-get
> ia32-aptitude
> ia32-apt-cache
> ia32-dpkg
> ia32-dpkg-deb
>
> All of them simple wrapper scripts that run the existing tools and do
> some extra processing before or after the existing tool or just pass
> an extra option or two.
>
>
> Feature comparison:
>
> ia32-libs-tools | ia32-libs
> ----------------------------------------| ------------------------------
> Source: 69311 Bytes | 363171098 Bytes ia32-libs
> | 191042473 Bytes ia32-libs-gtk
> |
> Binary: 46142 Bytes ia32-libs-tools | 29003858 Bytes ia32-libs
> 18598 Bytes ia32-apt-get | 12168602 Bytes ia32-libs-gtk
> 11620 Bytes ia32-archive |
> |
> Suports:3975 libraries | 112+32 libraries
> 315 binaries |
> 250+ tested and in use |
> |
> General:Honors Depends, Conflicts, | Ignores them all
> Replaces, Breaks, Pre-Depends, |
> Provides |
> |
> Packages shlibs file converted | Manual shlibs file with manual
> automatically preserving the | versioning
> version requirements |
> |
> Instant (security) updates | Needs manual intervention and
> for libraries | seperate upload for updates
> |
> Allows installing i386 debs | Needs repackaging of debs
> with full package relationship |
> checking |
> |
> Allows installing debs directly | Repacking means redistribution,
> from 3rd party apt repositories | not always legal to do so
> Example: skype | Example: skype
> |
> Allows package maintainers to | Special cases need to be added
> provide conversion hooks for | in ia32-libs source by its
> special cases | maintainer
> |
> Allows bit by bit conversion to | No upgrade path to multiarch.
> true multiarch as soon as | User needs to purge ia32-libs
> support is added to apt, dpkg | and all it reverse depends and
> and packages themself. Becomes | reinstall software under
> less and less hackish the more | multiarch. Mixtures will lead
> multiarch is implemented | to random version mismatches.
>
>
> ======================================================================
>
> [1] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-ia32-libs-maintainers/2008-April/000028.html
>
> [2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/06/msg00902.html
>
>
>
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