request a backport for Hardy?

[Ben Gladwell]

On 07/05/08 17:39 -0500, Tommy Trussell wrote:
> On 5/6/08, Ben Gladwell <bgladwell at goantiques.com> wrote:
> >
> >  On 06/05/08 10:54 -0400, Ben Gladwell wrote:
> >  > I remember someone on the list saying that gnucash in Ubuntu 7.10 had
> >  > the ofxdirect options compiled in.  They must have been using a
> >  > backported package (I wasn't using backports).  Can anyone confirm that?
> >  >
> >  > If so, does a request need to be issued for a backport for Gutsy?
> >
> >
> > Sorry - that didn't make sense.  What I MEANT to write was, "does a
> >  request need to be issued for a backport for Hardy?"
> 
> 
> I've been trying to understand what you need, but to start with, I
> believe there are no substantial differences between GnuCash versions
> in Debian and the versions that get ported and backported to Ubuntu.
> So far all the versions have been copied directly from Debian, with no
> additional options or libraries compiled in.
> 
> HOWEVER, if what you need is not available in Debian due to licensing
> issues, that would also be true in Ubuntu unless you add some extra
> work. (Whereas Debian remains "pure," not allowing licensing issues to
> pollute their repositories, there are some Ubuntu packages with
> commercial licenses. I'm not exactly sure how that would be worked
> out, but I think it's not as simple as just compiling it in.)

Thanks for responding and taking a look at this.
The confusion is probably due to my ignorance about backports.  Its true
that what I'm requesting isn't a newer version, but the same version
with a specific compile-time option enabled.  If that is not what
backports is for, then my mistake.
The Debian Gnucash package is compiled without the --enable-hbci option
because that requires use of OpenSSL, wherein lies the licensing
problem.  However, --enable-hbci enables integrated downloading of
transactions, which is a great feature.

And yes, in Hardy its not as simple as just compiling it in.  Some of
the packages that --enable-hbci depends on have moved on to a version
that gnucash does not support.  Building Gnucash with --enable-hbci
involves getting older packages from Gutsy.  I didn't realize this at
the time I requested the backport.

> 
> If this is something you want to pursue, you might put some more
> information in your Ubuntu bug #227732 -- maybe including links
> describing exactly what is required. I believe this will NOT be a
> backport, but a request for a new package.

Are backports created for things like this in Ubuntu?  Or are these
types of requests not really considered?

Thanks - Ben