XPost: linux.debian.devel.release

Greetings.

I've just uploaded gettext 0.23.1-0.1 for experimental.

[ This is preliminary, don't worry for the changelog, there will be a
proper one in unstable. Also please don't close any bugs yet, I want
to close them in unstable ].

There is a list of upstream changes here:

https://savannah.gnu.org/news/?id=10699

I've built the whole archive with the new gettext and I know that
the number of packages which FTBFS is approximately 22
(originally 24 but I already fixed two of them).

In most cases, the failure is like this:

make[3]: Entering directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/po'
*** error: gettext infrastructure mismatch: using a Makefile.in.in from gettext version 0.20 but the
autoconf macros are from gettext version 0.22

and I expect that the trick I used for sitecopy (QA maintained), which
is to copy Makefile.in.in *after* dh_autoreconf:

https://salsa.debian.org/debian/sitecopy/-/commit/27e4ed4205b7c62197f0428b6890d7bac2f5692e

will also work in many other cases.

My plan is to report those bugs with severity:important now
and then wait a week before uploading gettext for unstable (at which
time the remaining bugs would be RC).

Would the Release Managers approve this?

Thanks.

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XPost: linux.debian.devel.release

Hi!

On Sun, 2025-01-05 at 17:44:33 +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:

I've just uploaded gettext 0.23.1-0.1 for experimental.

Ah, great, thanks!

In most cases, the failure is like this:

make[3]: Entering directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/po'
*** error: gettext infrastructure mismatch: using a Makefile.in.in from gettext version 0.20 but the
autoconf macros are from gettext version 0.22

and I expect that the trick I used for sitecopy (QA maintained), which
is to copy Makefile.in.in *after* dh_autoreconf:

https://salsa.debian.org/debian/sitecopy/-/commit/27e4ed4205b7c62197f0428b6890d7bac2f5692e

will also work in many other cases.

I think this indicates a problem in the upstream autotools support,
and it might be better to try to fix that instead of adding what seems
like a workaround that might end up causing problems too due to the
(silenced) version mismatch.

I don't see the gettext version in the repo yet, but perhaps you could
try whether the attached patch fixes the above issue (and potentially
similar ones too).

The problem with AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION is that it requires an exact
version (from the autpoint gettext archive.dir.tar.xz) while AM_GNU_GETTEXT_REQUIRE_VERSION requires at least the specified version
but will pull in the latest available, which in our case should in
theory match the one used for the autoreconf.

(For upstream submission, depending on the version requirements, you
might want to have both, for backward compatibility reasons, for an
example of this see <https://git.dpkg.org/cgit/dpkg/dpkg.git/tree/configure.ac#n33>.)

Thanks,
Guillem

diff -Naur sitecopy-0.16.6/debian/patches/autoreconf.patch sitecopy-0.16.6.new/debian/patches/autoreconf.patch
--- sitecopy-0.16.6/debian/patches/autoreconf.patch 1970-01-01 00:00:00.000000000 +0000
+++ sitecopy-0.16.6.new/debian/patches/autoreconf.patch 2025-01-05 17:26:32.146975267 +0000
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+---
+ configure.in | 2 +-
+ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
+
+--- a/configure.in
++++ b/configure.in
+@@ -144,8 +144,8 @@ AC_CHECK_HEADERS(stdarg.h string.h strin
+ SOCKLEN_ARG_TYPE
+
+ ALL_LINGUAS="ru fr cs ja de tr nn it" ++AM_GNU_GETTEXT_REQUIRE_VERSION([0.21])
+ AM_GNU_GETTEXT([external])
+-AM_GNU_GETTEXT_VERSION([0.21])
+
+ NEON_WARNINGS
+
diff -Naur sitecopy-0.16.6/debian/patches/series sitecopy-0.16.6.new/debian/patches/series
--- sitecopy-0.16.6/debian/patches/series 2025-01-04 12:22:55.000000000 +0000
+++ sitecopy-0.16.6.new/debian/patches/series 2025-01-05 17:25:41.622842293 +0000
@@ -9,3 +9,4 @@
31_Fix-various-issues.diff
32_neon-0.31.patch
33_fix-ftbfs-gcc14.patch
+autoreconf.patch
diff -Naur sitecopy-0.16.6/debian/rules sitecopy-0.16.6.new/debian/rules
-

XPost: linux.debian.devel.release

El 5/1/25 a las 19:15, Guillem Jover escribió:

I think this indicates a problem in the upstream autotools support,
and it might be better to try to fix that instead of adding what seems
like a workaround that might end up causing problems too due to the (silenced) version mismatch.

I already did. Bruno says that autoreconf is not always expected to produce
a working package because of the heuristics it uses.

I don't see the gettext version in the repo yet, but perhaps you could> try whether the attached patch fixes the above issue (and potentially
similar ones too).

(Note: For gettext, I'm currently using different repos for unstable
and experimental because I didn't fully get the hang on gbp yet. Will
ask in -mentors about this one day).

I'll try the proposed patch for sitecopy and see if it works for
other packages too.

Thanks a lot!

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XPost: linux.debian.devel.release

Hi!

On Sun, 2025-01-05 at 19:37:44 +0100, Santiago Vila wrote:

El 5/1/25 a las 19:15, Guillem Jover escribió:

I think this indicates a problem in the upstream autotools support,
and it might be better to try to fix that instead of adding what seems
like a workaround that might end up causing problems too due to the (silenced) version mismatch.

I already did. Bruno says that autoreconf is not always expected to produce
a working package because of the heuristics it uses.

Ah, sorry, my wording was probably confusing. I think gettext works as advertised. I meant the autotools support from the upstream project
that is currently failing to build, such as sitecopy.

I don't see the gettext version in the repo yet, but perhaps you could> try whether the attached patch fixes the above issue (and potentially
similar ones too).

(Note: For gettext, I'm currently using different repos for unstable
and experimental because I didn't fully get the hang on gbp yet. Will
ask in -mentors about this one day).

Sorry again here, I meant the Debian experimental repo, not git repo
(didn't even look for that :).

I'll try the proposed patch for sitecopy and see if it works for
other packages too.

Great, thanks!

Regards,
Guillem

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XPost: linux.debian.devel.release

Hi. Since this is standard procedure, I've just filed the bugs:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-qa@lists.debian.org;tag=gettext-0.23

but with the caveat that I don't know when I will able to do the upload
for unstable. At this moment I don't want to think about NMUs yet.

Note for Guillem: I've included your suggested fix in the bug template.

Thanks.

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XPost: linux.debian.devel.release

Santiago Vila <sanvila@debian.org> writes:

Hi. Since this is standard procedure, I've just filed the bugs:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=debian-qa@lists.debian.org;tag=gettext-0.23

but with the caveat that I don't know when I will able to do the upload
for unstable. At this moment I don't want to think about NMUs yet.

Yay! I'm happy to help with NMUs if needed. I think getting gettext
0.23.x into trixie would be good.

Note for Guillem: I've included your suggested fix in the bug template.

I don't think we should patch upstream code for things that aren't clear upstream bugs. Patching upstream code in Debian packaging has a
maintainance cost and some risks. As far as I understand, the reason
for the FTBFS's isn't due to upstream misuse of gettext, it is a symptom
of how Debian packaging is (mis-)using autotools. I suggest generally
to not patch upstream code without reporting it upstream. In this case,
I don't think filing upstream bugs is a good idea: it seems more
appropriate if we fix this via debian/rules instead of putting fixes to Debian-specific problems into upstream code (especially since the fix
changes upstream semantics wrt gettext so isn't guarantee to be what
upstream prefer). Some of the packages seems to already do strange
things in debian/rules related to gettext and autotools, so I think at
least some of these are packaging bugs and not upstream bugs.

/Simon

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