gnucash update on debian errors, then stops

Lincoln A Baxter lab at lincolnbaxter.com
Thu Aug 10 22:09:04 EDT 2017


On Thu, 2017-08-03 at 21:16 +0200, John Ralls wrote:
> > On Aug 3, 2017, at 8:37 PM, Tommy Trussell <tommy.trussell at gmail.co
> m> wrote:
>> > On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 8:24 PM, John Griessen <john at industromatic.c
> om>
> > wrote:
>> >> I have not been able to upgrade gnucash for a while now.
> >> 
> >> Will there be a usable gnucash in the next debian release?
> >> If not, why not?
> >> 
> >> I still use this version on debian stretch/testing/frozen, soon to
> be the
> >> new released debian stable:
> >> 
>> > For now I presume you might switch to using the version at
> getdeb.net
> > though I don't know your particular requirements. Another option,
> of
> > course, is to build it yourself. See https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/
> Debian
> > though it looks like a lot on that page is kindof stale, and it
> doesn't
> > link you to the pages describing how to build from git or a tarball
> -- see
> > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Building
>> > HOWEVER I have been seeing warnings from Debian for several weeks
> now about
> > GnuCash's impending removal from Testing.
>> > In past years this has been because of a packaging issue, which
> always
> > seems to get resolved by the maintainer before the deadline and
> things go
> > on normally.
>> > This time it was apparently more fundamental -- the warnings were
> because
> > GnuCash depends upon webkitgtk:
>> > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=866671
>> > "webkitgtk: Unmaintained, not suitable for buster"
>> > Again I presumed this is a fairly straightforward issue, but on
> July 31st I
> > saw this email:
>> > > Debian testing watch <noreply at release.debian.org>
> >> to gnucash
> >> FYI: The status of the gnucash source package
> >> in Debian's testing distribution has changed.
> >>  Previous version: 1:2.6.17-1
> >>  Current version:  (not in testing)
> >>  Hint: <https://release.debian.org/britney/hints/auto-removals>
> >>    Bug #790204: gnucash: depends on libwebkitgtk-1.0-0 which is
> deprecated
> >> The script that generates this mail tries to extract removal
> >> reasons from comments in the britney hint files. Those comments
> >> were not originally meant to be machine readable, so if the
> >> reason for removing your package seems to be nonsense, it is
> >> probably the reporting script that got confused. Please check the
> >> actual hints file before you complain about meaningless removals.
>>> > Here's the link to that bug:
>> > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=790204
>> > The same volunteer has maintained the Debian GnuCash package for
> years. I
> > presume he might have contacted the GnuCash developers for
> guidance, but I
> > haven't noticed any messages from him go across the gnucash-dev
> email list.
>> > I HAVE seen discussions about updating the webkit dependencies, but
> if
> > there was any particular urgency I didn't notice.
> 
> Yes, the webkit1 dependency will be replaced with webkit2 for Unix
> (webkit2gtk doesn't support windows) in 2.8.
> 
> Regards,
> John Ralls
> 
Hi John (and Dev's)

I'm listening mostly silently on the the devel list, and seeing LOT of
refactoring going on for 2.8.  But I'm having trouble reconciling the
statement above with respect to webkit2gtk, and the notes on the devel
list about switching to Gtk3/Webkit4gtk3 (Subject: Timeline and goals
for Guncash vv2.8.).


I've very concerned about Gnucash being removed from Debian
testing.  Not just because I use it... but also because many, many
distributions are based on Debian Testing and Debian Stable.  Including
Ubuntu which is quite popular, probably most popular.   I wouldn't be
surprised if 50% or more of GC linux users use Debian or a Debian
derived distribution.

Can the group make a clear statement on the gnucash user list about the
plan and time line for getting Gnucash back in Debian? If the wait is
long for 2.8, should we be thinking about a maintenance release for
2.6, if for no other reason than to get it back into Debian?

Thanks,

Lincoln



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