Re: GNUstep on Hackernews

[Yavor Doganov]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2021 22:54:32 +0200,
Ivan Vučica wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 9:34 AM Andreas Fink <afink@list.fink.org> wrote:
> > packages in Debian are quite old
> 
> Inaccurate.

It is both accurate and inaccurate.  More precisely, at times it is
accurate and at times it is inaccurate; it also depends what Debian
release you use for comparison.  It is inevitable that a stable
release at some point starts qualifiying as one one with "old" or even
"quite old" packages, even with best of our effort.

> At release times, I usually try to coordinate with Debian packagers.
> This time, it took a bit longer, but uploads happened in November and
> December.

This is my personal fault; I failed to coordinate with you and inform
in advance about Debian's release schedule so the current GNUstep core
releases happened at a time we couldn't include them in the current
Debian stable release (bullseye).  Then I was waiting for my sponsor
for more than 6 months for the upload of gnustep-make and subsequently
current GNUstep releases were introduced in Debian unstable with a
great delay.

> > and don't support objc2.0.
> 
> The issue here is Debian preferring to build things with GCC over
> Clang.

I'm quite certain that I've explained at least once in great detail
why this is so, on this list.  As there are still questions popping up
here and there, I intend to write a specific chapter regarding this
subject in the not-yet-finished Debian GNUstep team policy document.
It will be installable as a Debian package and the repository will be
public, like almost everything in Debian.

> If we can convince the (very kind in their efforts) maintainers of
> the packaging to try to package with Clang and libobjc2, we'd be
> golden.

The thing is, Debian is no longer a distro where a member of the
project can upload its pet package and keep it under custody until he
is formally declared maintainer.  Packages are being aggressively
removed nowadays, on the grounds of being obsolete, unpopular,
unmaintained, or with unresponsive upstream.  We fought hard with the
Debian stweards some 15 years ago for GNUstep to remain and I foresee
more battles on the horizon.

The automatic reaction of these people is to "get rid" and that's
natural.  From a Debian ftpmaster POV, a change which requires plenty
of manual action + coordination between teams and does not bring any
real benefit to the current packages is a poor change.

> I believe Yavor and Gurkan are subscribed to (some of) GNUstep
> mailing lists.

FWIW, I'm reading all GNUstep lists + (Savannah) bug traffic +
(GitHub) commit notifications + GAP + (not sure) gnustep-nonfsf.  I'm
only subscribed to some of them though, the bulk of it I follow via
Usenet (Gmane), sometimes with delay.