Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Christoph Biedl <debian.axhn@manchmal.in-ulm.de>
* Package name : python-magic
Version : 0.4.13
Upstream Author : Adam Hupp <adam@hupp.org>
* URL : https://github.com/ahupp/python-magic/
* License : MIT
Programming Lang: Python
Description : A python wrapper for libmagic
Tentative long description:
python-magic is a python interface to the libmagic file type
identification library. libmagic identifies file types by checking
their headers according to a predefined list of file types.
Some background:
For quite some time, there have been two but incompatible
implementations for python-magic, providing python bindings for
libmagic (src:file).
The one provided by file ("[file]") itself might be a bit older but
appearently Adam Hupp's implementation ("[pypi]") provides a better
feature set and might even have a broader user base.
Some discussion on this took place on the debian-python list, starting
at [1]: Debian currently provides [file] so at least three packages
that require [pypi] ship their own code copy, more to come. In
upstream[2], there has been a basic understanding between Christos
Zoulas ([file]) and Adam Hupp ([pypi]) to resolve that conflict, and
Adam has announced[3] to work on a merge.
The tentative transition plan is as follows, and I'm open for
suggestions:
* Wait until [pypi] provides the [file] API.
* Ship the library using a different binary package name like
"Package: python-magic-pypi, Provides: python-magic". Same for
python3, here and in all the following.
* Ask users of python-magic to install this new package and check
for regression.
* Big switch when it seems feasible: Then src:file will no longer
provide python-magic, this package here will do insted.
(For the records, Debian maintainer for src:file is yours truly.)
* Ask maintainers who ship a [pypi] code copy to use the package
instead. Would be a MBF if there weren't just a few.
As my Python knowledge is limited, I'm not particulary keen on
maintaining this for Debian and I might even ITA it after the
transition. If somebody else wishes to do the job instead, please step
forward. For the filexit time however, good coordination is required.
Christoph
[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-python/2017/09/msg00008.html
[2] The file mailing list archive is down, relevant parts are
quoted in
https://lists.debian.org/debian-python/2017/09/msg00015.html
[3] https://lists.debian.org/debian-python/2017/10/msg00021.html
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