Control: severity -1 wishlist
Control: tags -1 + moreinfo
I was asked to remove the libtinfo5, libncurses5 and libncursesw5
packages and am looking for feedback.
On 2022-12-12 16:44 +0100, Bastian Germann wrote:
> Package: libncurses5
> Version: 6.3+20220423-2
> Severity: minor
>
> With bullseye, the dev packages of libtinfo5, libncurses5,
> libncursesw5 became transitional to point to the 6 versioned
> packages. However, the packages themselves are still there and do not
> have any reverse dependencies anymore. Please remove them.
It is true that these packages do not have any reverse dependencies in
the archive (actually since Buster), but there is a lot of third party
software that needs them. Therefore most distributions still offer ABI
5 ncurses packages. Fedora's maintainer dropped the ncurses-compat-lib
package in both RHEL 9 and Fedora 37, but after various complaints by
users[1,2,3,4] he was ordered to bring them back until Fedora 40[5]. In
RHEL 9 however, this package remains unavailable.
It should be noted that the ncurses-compat-lib package in RHEL/Fedora
has a strict dependency on their ncurses-base package, so it is not
possible to simply install (or keep) the version from an older release,
and much of the backlash in Fedora can likely be attributed to this
fact. The Debian packages do not have that problem, only depend on
glibc, and I expect them to keep working for many years to come.
The best time to drop libncurses5 etc. from Debian would be right after
a release, so that testing/unstable users are not left with an
unsupported version and can seamlessly upgrade to security fixes from
stable. That leaves two options: keep the ABI 5 packages until Trixie,
or drop them right now (and possibly reintroduce them in late 2024,
if they are still needed).
Considering that vendors will not get a RHEL 9 certification for
software that needs libncurses.so.5, and that distributions where you
can actually build such software will be on life support when Trixie
gets released, I am inclined to drop the libtinfo5, libncurses5 and
libncursesw5 packages now. If you have objections, please raise them.
Cheers,
Sven
1. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2129865
2. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2135400
3. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2144184
4. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2150117
5. https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/2911
