Re: Packages still depending on GTK+ 1.2
Morten Kjeldgaard dijo [Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 02:35:46PM +0100]:
> > With its thousands of packages, Debian is not so rich in manpower, so if
> > the current maintainers of GTK+ 1.2 want to abandon it and the QA team is
> > not interested in keeping it, there is no other choice than to adopt it
> > (and its 43 bugs) if you want it to stay in Debian. It had less than upload
> > per year since 2003, so maybe it is doable. Also, I think that it is
> > possible to opt-out security support if this an issue (but it might make
> > the package unfit for release).
>
> I must admit I was under the impression from this discussion that GTK+
> 1.2 was
> simply _unwanted_ in Debian due to reasons of out-of-dateness and possible
> security problems...
>
> I am quite willing to adopt the package and maintain it, but I couldn't
> find
> it on the list of orphans. Maybe I didn't look hard enough? That list is
> enormous... :-(
As others have said in this thread... Yes, Gtk1.2 could survive if
people were willing to adopt it and keep it maintained... But there
_is_ a strong consensus against stale, unneeded software not supported
upstream anymore (and for several years). Keeping Gtk in Debian
encourages people not to take a look at the code they wrote a decade
ago, which might be full of bugs, or even of what the "Agile
programming" crowd call "smells" - All sorts of programming practices
that have become obsoleted (or outright shown to be dangerous) over
the years. As an example - Around ten years ago few people would have
thought about the security implications of an integer overflow or
format string attacks.
There are, yes, tens of packages still in Debian which depend on
Gtk1.2. However, many of us have the opinion that, if they are worthy
enough, somebody will have the interest and time to port them to
Gtk2. Try and do the same to your pet programs - you will do a much
bigger service than by maintaining Gtk1.2.
--
Gunnar Wolf - gwolf@gwolf.org - (+52-55)5623-0154 / 1451-2244
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
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