Bug#888656: flowcanvas: should this package be removed? (superseded by ganv)

[Simon McVittie]

Source: flowcanvas
Severity: important
User: debian-***@lists.debian.org
Usertags: proposed-removal
Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -2 ladish
Control: retitle -2 ladish: should this package be removed?

flowcanvas depends on numerous obsolete GNOME 2-era libraries
(e.g. #885095) and hasn't had a maintainer upload since 2009. Its upstream
website says:

**Note**: FlowCanvas is dead, long live Ganv!

ganv is also in Debian as src:ganv; it's orphaned in Debian, but appears
to have commit activity upstream.

flowcanvas has one reverse-dependency in Debian, gladish (src:ladish),
whose most recent maintainer upload was in 2014. web.archive.org says
the ladish.org website has been down since mid 2014.

These packages both seem like candidates for removal from unstable.
If you agree, please reassign this bug to the ftp team with
***@bugs.debian.org commands similar to these:

severity xxxxxx normal
reassign xxxxxx ftp.debian.org
retitle xxxxxx RM: flowcanvas -- RoQA; depends on obsolete libraries, superseded by ganv

severity yyyyyy normal
reassign yyyyyy ftp.debian.org
retitle yyyyyy RM: ladish -- RoQA; depends on obsolete libraries, appears unmaintained upstream

(replacing RoQA with RoM if you are a maintainer of the appropriate package).

Thanks,
smcv

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Post by Simon McVittie
clone -1 -2

Bug #888656 [src:flowcanvas] flowcanvas: should this package be removed? (superseded by ganv)
Bug 888656 cloned as bug 888657

Post by Simon McVittie
reassign -2 ladish

Bug #888657 [src:flowcanvas] flowcanvas: should this package be removed? (superseded by ganv)
Bug reassigned from package 'src:flowcanvas' to 'ladish'.
Ignoring request to alter found versions of bug #888657 to the same values previously set
Ignoring request to alter fixed versions of bug #888657 to the same values previously set

Post by Simon McVittie
retitle -2 ladish: should this package be removed?

Bug #888657 [ladish] flowcanvas: should this package be removed? (superseded by ganv)
Changed Bug title to 'ladish: should this package be removed?' from 'flowcanvas: should this package be removed? (superseded by ganv)'.

[t***@tuxfamily.org]

Post by Simon McVittie
Source: flowcanvas
Severity: important
Usertags: proposed-removal
Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -2 ladish
Control: retitle -2 ladish: should this package be removed?
flowcanvas depends on numerous obsolete GNOME 2-era libraries
(e.g. #885095) and hasn't had a maintainer upload since 2009. Its upstream
**Note**: FlowCanvas is dead, long live Ganv!
ganv is also in Debian as src:ganv; it's orphaned in Debian, but appears
to have commit activity upstream.
flowcanvas has one reverse-dependency in Debian, gladish (src:ladish),
whose most recent maintainer upload was in 2014. web.archive.org says
the ladish.org website has been down since mid 2014.

ladish looks to be maintained by alessio (last commit 20 Apr 2017) here
:
https://github.com/alessio/ladish/
(the same goes laditools as well)

Post by Simon McVittie
These packages both seem like candidates for removal from unstable.

It would be a big regression from a user point of view since it'll
remove
the "studio" (reopen everything in one-click) from Debian with no
alternative.

Post by Simon McVittie

Post by Simon McVittie
If you agree, please reassign this bug to the ftp team with
severity xxxxxx normal
reassign xxxxxx ftp.debian.org
retitle xxxxxx RM: flowcanvas -- RoQA; depends on obsolete libraries, superseded by ganv
severity yyyyyy normal
reassign yyyyyy ftp.debian.org
retitle yyyyyy RM: ladish -- RoQA; depends on obsolete libraries,
appears unmaintained upstream
(replacing RoQA with RoM if you are a maintainer of the appropriate package).
Thanks,
smcv

Hope that helps.
Olivier

[James Cowgill]

Hi,

Post by t***@tuxfamily.org

Post by Simon McVittie
Source: flowcanvas
Severity: important
Usertags: proposed-removal
Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -2 ladish
Control: retitle -2 ladish: should this package be removed?
flowcanvas depends on numerous obsolete GNOME 2-era libraries
(e.g. #885095) and hasn't had a maintainer upload since 2009. Its upstream
    **Note**: FlowCanvas is dead, long live Ganv!
ganv is also in Debian as src:ganv; it's orphaned in Debian, but appears
to have commit activity upstream.
flowcanvas has one reverse-dependency in Debian, gladish (src:ladish),
whose most recent maintainer upload was in 2014. web.archive.org says
the ladish.org website has been down since mid 2014.

https://github.com/alessio/ladish/
(the same goes laditools as well)

You failed to mention that there has only been one non-merge commit to
that repository since 2014.

The truth is unless someone is willing to do the porting work, these
packages are not going to survive whether they are "maintained" or not.

James

[Michel Rodriguez]

Post by James Cowgill
Hi,

Post by t***@tuxfamily.org

Post by Simon McVittie
Source: flowcanvas
Severity: important
Usertags: proposed-removal
Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -2 ladish
Control: retitle -2 ladish: should this package be removed?
flowcanvas depends on numerous obsolete GNOME 2-era libraries
(e.g. #885095) and hasn't had a maintainer upload since 2009. Its upstream
**Note**: FlowCanvas is dead, long live Ganv!
ganv is also in Debian as src:ganv; it's orphaned in Debian, but appears
to have commit activity upstream.
flowcanvas has one reverse-dependency in Debian, gladish (src:ladish),
whose most recent maintainer upload was in 2014. web.archive.org says
the ladish.org website has been down since mid 2014.

ladish looks to be maintained by alessio (last commit 20 Apr 2017) here
https://github.com/alessio/ladish/
(the same goes laditools as well)

You failed to mention that there has only been one non-merge commit to
that repository since 2014.
The truth is unless someone is willing to do the porting work, these
packages are not going to survive whether they are "maintained" or not.
James

The package contains the daemon and an example gui. One quick alternative
would be to separate the daemon from the gui in two separate package and at
least maintain the daemon ?


Michel

[Paul Brossier]

hi again,

thanks for answering Felipe.

Alessio, if cadence was in the archive, would removing the UI from
ladish seem like a good solution?

cheers, piem

hey all.
ladish is pretty much dead.
that said, you could build the project with just the backend/CLI, and
leave the gtk ui behind.
this satisfies cadence (claudia) needs, since it actually implements a
full new frontend for ladish.
if that is not an option, just remove ladish altogether and take it out
as dependency from cadence.
it is not a hard requirement for it to run, it will just lose some
features.

hi all,
flowcanvas should definitely removed, and ganv adopted, since it is
being used in newer tools such as Cadence (see
https://github.com/falkTX/Cadence)
ideally, ladish should be switched from using flowcanvas to using ganv.
I started looking at that, but there is quite a few API changes between
flowcanvas and ganv, so it is a bit more than a trivial search and
replace.
Maybe drobilla or falktx (CCed) would want to help here?
cheers, piem

Post by t***@tuxfamily.org

Post by Simon McVittie
Source: flowcanvas
Severity: important
Usertags: proposed-removal
Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -2 ladish
Control: retitle -2 ladish: should this package be removed?
flowcanvas depends on numerous obsolete GNOME 2-era libraries
(e.g. #885095) and hasn't had a maintainer upload since 2009. Its upstream
     **Note**: FlowCanvas is dead, long live Ganv!
ganv is also in Debian as src:ganv; it's orphaned in Debian, but appears
to have commit activity upstream.
flowcanvas has one reverse-dependency in Debian, gladish (src:ladish),
whose most recent maintainer upload was in 2014. web.archive.org says
the ladish.org website has been down since mid 2014.

ladish looks to be maintained by alessio (last commit 20 Apr 2017)
https://github.com/alessio/ladish/
(the same goes laditools as well)

Post by Simon McVittie
These packages both seem like candidates for removal from unstable.

It would be a big regression from a user point of view since it'll
remove
the "studio" (reopen everything in one-click) from Debian with no
alternative.

Post by Simon McVittie
If you agree, please reassign this bug to the ftp team with
severity xxxxxx normal
reassign xxxxxx ftp.debian.org
retitle xxxxxx RM: flowcanvas -- RoQA; depends on obsolete libraries,
superseded by ganv
severity yyyyyy normal
reassign yyyyyy ftp.debian.org
retitle yyyyyy RM: ladish -- RoQA; depends on obsolete libraries,
appears unmaintained upstream
(replacing RoQA with RoM if you are a maintainer of the appropriate package).
Thanks,
     smcv

Hope that helps.
Olivier

[Alessio Treglia]

Hi all,

Post by Paul Brossier
hi again,
thanks for answering Felipe.
Alessio, if cadence was in the archive, would removing the UI from
ladish seem like a good solution?

I agree, it would most definitely be the right solution.

Thanks.

[Nedko Arnaudov]

Upstream wise, ladish was switched to internal copy of flowcanvas in
2012, in git commit 67cc9c9e05d47e6074167fc05c12ec87e8c0058e, available
in public git repositories ever since.

The removed external flowcanvas depencency is used by gladish gtk2
(debian mate?) frontend of ladishd. Both gladish and ladishd programs,
are part of the upstream ladish project.

* commit 67cc9c9e05d47e6074167fc05c12ec87e8c0058e
| Author: Nedko Arnaudov <***@arnaudov.name>
| Date: Sat Apr 7 23:47:03 2012 +0300
|
| embed flowcanvas-0.7.1

[Nedko Arnaudov]

With the latest upstream code, whether waf configure process will choose
to build gladish depends on availability of following dependencies
(pkg-config names):

* glib-2.0
* dbus-glib-1
* gtk+-2.0
* gtkmm-2.4 (this one seems indirect dependency of libgnomecanvasmm)
* libgnomecanvasmm-2.6

Additionally boost some C++ headers (but not libraries) are needed.

Currently there is no configure option to disable gladish build when all
dependencies are available, so packagers are left with oportunity to use
the build "sandbox" environments they probably use anyway and which have
only required build dependencies installed. Otherwise, a small patch to
wscript file will do the job.

All *mm/C++ stuff is dependency of the flowcanvas code embedded in
year 42 UTC (2012 if you are christian :).

I installed all abovementioned dependencies in a failed attempt to build
latest upstream gladish git code on my arm64 Ubuntu teres-1, which is
X11 setup I currently have that is closest to Debian. With caveat of
Debian being different distro and without further investigation, I
suggest that a similar failure could be expected elsewhere:

It seems that Waf picks C++ flags (c++ standard being set) from
libgnomecanvas "pkg-config --cflags" for building gladish C
files. Invoking C compiler with C++ flags causes build failure, as
expected.

So to the point what are the possibilities for building and using ladish
when gladish frontend is not buildable. As ladishd daemon is exporting
control interface over D-Bus session bus, alternative frontends are
possible and already exist.

ladish_control is a python script that is part of the upstream
distribution. Together with jack_control from jackdbus (jack1 or jack2),
they provide unix shell access functionally equivalent (unless proven
otherwise) to gladish GUI.

Another option known to me is to use the much more full-featured than
gladish, or at least alternatively looking, frontend GUI software
Claudia by falktx. To my knowledge Claudia is already packaged (along
with ladishd and maybe even gladish?) as part of Debian-derivate
project KXStudio:

http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/Applications:Claudia