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Re: Removing tophat (Was: Bug#938677: Please check autopkgtest of (may be failed) attempt of Python3 port (Was: Bug#938677: tophat: Python2 removal in sid/bullseye))

Hi Andreas,

On 11/20/19 4:34 PM, Andreas Tille wrote:

On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 03:33:33PM +0100, Alex Mestiashvili wrote:


It is not that trivial to fix tophat and more over there is a successor
- HISAT2.
It is not maintained upstream since 2016 and one of the co-authors
asks to stop using it:


Please stop using Tophat. Cole and I developed the
method in *2008*. It was greatly improved in TopHat2 then HISAT
& HISAT2. There is no reason to use it anymore. I have been
saying this for years yet it has more citations this year than last


Fine for me.

In 2017 we had already a discussion about removing tophat from
Debian[0], and now I believe the time has come.


I have no problems if you file a ROM.  What we might consider for
this case or in general:  If there is a successor of some software
would we want to

    1) Use a virtual package name in the successor
    2) Create a metapackage depending from the successor and
       delivering some docs about how to use the successor
    3) Make med-bio (or whereever the outdated package was
       advertised in) conflicting with the outdated software?


I think 1 and 2 don't really feet for this case.
med-bio should exclude tophat from the list of recommended packages.



Just filing a ROM request will not remove the package from user
installations.  Its a question whether we really want to prevent that
users keep that package - but in case we want this the technical means
mentioned above came to mind (not sure whether this is a complete list
of possibilities).
I guess I'll leave it to the user. However once python2 is removed the package will be broken, but I don't see a good way to prevent that and notifying the user is too much effort IMO. 

So I'll take the easy way and file ROM.

Thanks,
Alex
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