Bug#841294: Overrule maintainer of "global" to package a new upstream version
On Tue, 25 Oct 2016 05:47:27 +1030 Ron <ron@debian.org> wrote:
[...]
> That's basically why "just nuke htags now" is starting to look like
> a viable, and even sensible, option. But it's tricky to know who
> might be upset by that - and we don't have a clear idea of exactly
> what we'd really gain elsewhere from that tradeoff, since most of
> the people saying "I need a new upstream" haven't actually been
> telling us what the real problem is which that fixes, even when I
> asked.
Gtags in Debian doesn't work with modern code base. Last time I tried (several
years ago), it segfault'ed while trying to index Linux kernel.
Here is my two cents on the issue of whether Debian should update global to a
newer version and nuke htags:
While I can't provide concrete numbers on how many people care or don't care
about htags, there are some proxies that can help with this:
1. Most if not all the bug reporters for global package don't use htags.
2. Other distros' maintainers / users don't seem to care about htags or its
implications.
3. The Debian users of global, according to popcon, is declining, which means
less and less people care about current package (hence htags, for that
matter).
The core functionality of global is code indexing. As it stands, the current
version is buggy and chokes on modern code base. The usability of the current
package is only going to be less and less. No matter how secured the current
package is, Debian users won't be able to use it because it can't generate
index files in the first place. Eventually no-one will use this package. All
in all, I think it is a disservice to Debian users to keep the status quo. I
believe you've exhausted all venues to communicate with upstream your concern
about CGI scripts. It is unfortunate that no progress was made in the last 8+
years. Under such circumstance, sacrificing a non-core functionality (htags)
to serve the greater good seems to be a good trade-off to me.
Wei.
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