Re: Lintian ERROR saying dpatch is obsolete
Alexander Wirt <formorer@debian.org> writes:
>> > Recently [1], dpatch's maintainer uploaded a new version indicating
>> > that dpatch is now deprecated. Following that, he filed a bug [2] so
>> > that lintian might warn that dpatch's makefile has been deprecated
>> > since 2003, and that dpatch itself is now deprecated. However, he
>> > also stated that he plans to keep dpatch for wheezy.
>>
>> Just for the record, to reiterate what I have said previously[1], dpatch
>> will be kept around until it can be removed safely: when all reverse
>> build-depends have been migrated to something else.
>>
>> [1]: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2011/08/msg00380.html
>>
>> That certainly won't happen before wheezy, and is unlikely to happen for
>> wheezy+1, too. My plan still is to phase out dpatch by wheezy+2, but
>> until then, it's a legacy that should be migrated away from, and must
>> not be used for new packages.
> Since there is no proper alternative (no quilt is not) I will continue to use
> dpatch for all of my packages. If neccessary I would volunteer to take over
> upstream.
I'd rather figure out what makes dpatch better than quilt for your
use-cases, and go from there.
My goal is not to force people when they really don't have an
alternative - I want to find an alternative for these cases. The lintian
check is mostly there for those cases where an alternative exists, but
it wasn't migrated to out of, lets say, lack of motivation.
> So if you are just going for leftover rdeps it will probably never be
> removed.
Nope, I'm not going only for leftover rdeps. I'll investigate the harder
cases too, where migration is either non-trivial, or it involves finding
a suitable alternative (be that quilt, something built around quilt, or
something completely different).
I planned to do this by first getting rid of the easy ones, but if
people who prefer dpatch over other solutions step up and tell me up
front why they're happy with dpatch, and unhappy with the things I
consider alternatives, so much the better!
While you did mention on IRC that you're unhappy with quilt, and prefer
dpatch over it, I'm afraid I don't remember the reasons why that is
so. If you could share those, that would be very welcomed.
And anyone else, who dislikes my decision of deprecating dpatch: let me
know why you prefer dpatch over, say, quilt. The goal is not to make our
lives miserable, but to fix up the alternatives to be as good, or
better, than dpatch.
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