Debian Bug report logs - #573538
RM: sagemath -- RoQA; broken and outdated; RC-buggy

Package: ftp.debian.org; Maintainer for ftp.debian.org is Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>;

Reported by: Florent Hivert <florent.hivert@univ-rouen.fr>

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:36:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Done: Debian Archive Maintenance <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

View this report as an mbox folder, status mbox, maintainer mbox

Report forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:36:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Florent Hivert <florent.hivert@univ-rouen.fr>:
New Bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:36:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Package: sagemath
Version: 3.0.5dfsg-5.1
Severity: Grave

Hi, the sagemath deb package is very outdated and we get reports on a regular
base that it is not working. We do not have the manpower to release a new
package, but it is very easy to install a prebuilt binary. Still, many install
it via the repository and think that it is crap. We do not know who removes
packages from the Debian repository, but it would be very good if it would
happen. Here is one of our recent discussions about that:

http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/29ee9e1d4efdeda2/

Cheers,

Florent Hivert

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:03:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@MIT.EDU>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:03:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #10 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hi Florent,

I was planning to discuss this with upstream during the weekend when I 
have some time to think about Sage, but I should give some quick thoughts 
here.

Is the issue upstream is having actually that people are installing the 
sagemath package on Debian unstable systems and being confused?

My guess is that your actual problem is that the sagemath package made it 
into Ubuntu Karmic (despite it having release-critical bugs designed to 
prevent it from making it into any Debian release) and lots of people are 
having a bad experience there.  I'd be happy to help with trying to get it 
removed from Ubuntu Karmic -- I ask what's involved in doing that.

	-Tim Abbott

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010, Florent Hivert wrote:

> Package: sagemath
> Version: 3.0.5dfsg-5.1
> Severity: Grave
> 
> Hi, the sagemath deb package is very outdated and we get reports on a regular
> base that it is not working. We do not have the manpower to release a new
> package, but it is very easy to install a prebuilt binary. Still, many install
> it via the repository and think that it is crap. We do not know who removes
> packages from the Debian repository, but it would be very good if it would
> happen. Here is one of our recent discussions about that:
> 
> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/29ee9e1d4efdeda2/
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Florent Hivert
> 
> 
>

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Sat, 08 May 2010 18:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Sat, 08 May 2010 18:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #15 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hi, Tim.

I see that you don't seem to have the time to package sagemath and it
could be in a better state. Would you be willing to have co-maintainers,
maintain it with a team etc?

A package this important should not be removed from the distribution
and, even though I am not a member of the science team, I would love to
help with some of the issues that happen to appear.


Thanks, Rogério Brito.

P.S.: Please, keep me CC'ed, as I am not subscribed to the lists etc.
-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://rb.doesntexist.org : Packages for LaTeX : algorithms.berlios.de
DebianQA: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=rbrito%40ime.usp.br

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Sun, 09 May 2010 18:57:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@MIT.EDU>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Sun, 09 May 2010 18:57:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #20 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello Rogério,

You are right that I don't have the time to maintain sagemath -- I'd be 
very happy to move to a team maintenance structure.  I've copied several 
folks who have expressed interest in updating the Sage packaging over the 
last few weeks, who may help provide the initial team.

There's a mailing list debian-sage@googlegroups.com that originally 
gathered to discuss packaging Sage in Debian, and probably is reasonable 
to use for this purpose for now.

Given the time I have available at this stage, I imagine that my role will 
primarily be explaining extensive documentation of how the current 
packaging structure works (and publishing some of my current partial work 
somewhere), and the actual work of updating the software will need to be 
done by others.  I'm also happy to help with making uploads happen to the 
packages I currently maintain as needed.

Is anyone interested in organizing the effort?

	-Tim Abbott

p.s. when replying to this thread, please try to not drop all the other 
lists from the thread.

On Sat, 8 May 2010, Rogério Brito wrote:

> Hi, Tim.
> 
> I see that you don't seem to have the time to package sagemath and it
> could be in a better state. Would you be willing to have co-maintainers,
> maintain it with a team etc?
> 
> A package this important should not be removed from the distribution
> and, even though I am not a member of the science team, I would love to
> help with some of the issues that happen to appear.
> 
> 
> Thanks, Rogério Brito.
> 
> P.S.: Please, keep me CC'ed, as I am not subscribed to the lists etc.
> -- 
> Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
> http://rb.doesntexist.org : Packages for LaTeX : algorithms.berlios.de
> DebianQA: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=rbrito%40ime.usp.br
> 
> 
>

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Mon, 10 May 2010 06:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Mon, 10 May 2010 06:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #25 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 03:43:28PM -0300, Rogério Brito wrote:
> I see that you don't seem to have the time to package sagemath and it
> could be in a better state. Would you be willing to have co-maintainers,
> maintain it with a team etc?

I would really welcome if sagemath would become a usable package.  The
packaged version (3.0.5) is currently so far behind upstream (4.4.1)
that I doubt anybody wants to use the Debian package.

> A package this important should not be removed from the distribution
> and, even though I am not a member of the science team, I would love to
> help with some of the issues that happen to appear.

So I would really love to see sagemath to be team maintained because
packages of that complexity seem to need a team to handle the issues
properly and in time.  IMHO Debian Science is a reasonable team (but I'm
personally not able to spend much time into it - checking a package
befor upload, perhaps sponsoring an upload would be possible in case it
is needed).

> Thanks, Rogério Brito.
> 
> P.S.: Please, keep me CC'ed, as I am not subscribed to the lists etc.

IN case you want to join the Debian Science team it would be reasonable
to subscribe this list (but CCed for now).

Kind regards

      Andreas.

-- 
http://fam-tille.de

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Sat, 03 Jul 2010 22:51:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Giovanni Mascellani <g.mascellani@gmail.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Sat, 03 Jul 2010 22:51:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #30 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi to the many recipients of this email.

I'm interested in having sagemath in Debian. I'm not a sagemath power
user and maybe should learn a bit of the many technologies used to build
it in order to maintain it, but I have no problems in learning what I
need (even if this can take time).

Tim, if you can explain a bit how you used to maintain sagemath, I could
get that as a starting point for the new package.

Thanks, Giovanni.
-- 
Giovanni Mascellani <mascellani@poisson.phc.unipi.it>
Pisa, Italy

Web: http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~mascellani
Jabber: g.mascellani@jabber.org / giovanni@elabor.homelinux.org

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Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:57:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:57:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #35 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hi there, Giovanni and others.

On 07/03/2010 07:48 PM, Giovanni Mascellani wrote:
> I'm interested in having sagemath in Debian.

I am too. This past week I needed to perform some quite messy computations and
the lack of something to make them automatic was frustrating.

> I'm not a sagemath power user and maybe should learn a bit of the many
> technologies used to build it in order to maintain it, but I have no problems
> in learning what I need (even if this can take time).

I am also willing to learn stuff and even better if I can share what I already know.

> Tim, if you can explain a bit how you used to maintain sagemath, I could get
> that as a starting point for the new package.

Tim, did you receive Giovanni's e-mail?

BTW, I will be at this year's DebConf and I hope to be able to work on this, at
least to get something started.

Regards,

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://rb.doesntexist.org : Packages for LaTeX : algorithms.berlios.de
DebianQA: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=rbrito%40ime.usp.br

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:57:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Giovanni Mascellani <gio@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:57:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #40 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi.

Thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately in the meantime upstream's
reaction wasn't really the one I'd liked more[1].

 [1]
http://groups.google.com.au/group/debian-sage/browse_thread/thread/20e092f1b11e6f02

Anyway, maybe these issues can be solved, if we talk with upstream and,
above all, we can find a few people to comaintain the package. Working
with a non collaborative upstream would be very frustrating on such big
package (it is frustrating on much more stupid packages...).

Il 19/07/2010 15:52, Rogério Brito ha scritto:
> BTW, I will be at this year's DebConf and I hope to be able to work on this, at
> least to get something started.

Unfortunately, I won't come (even if I hope to be in Banja Luka 2011).
Good luck! :-)

After announcing my interest, I didn't invest any time in sage, partly
because of upstream's reaction I mentioned above, partly because I
wanted to finish to work on some packages I'm already busy on. However,
I really don't think that sagemath will be part of squeeze, I guess
we'll have to wait at least squeeze+1.

Ciao, Giovanni.
-- 
Giovanni Mascellani <mascellani@poisson.phc.unipi.it>
Pisa, Italy

Web: http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~mascellani
Jabber: g.mascellani@jabber.org / giovanni@elabor.homelinux.org

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Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:30:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:30:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #45 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hi, Giovanni.

On Jul 19 2010, Giovanni Mascellani wrote:
> Thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately in the meantime upstream's
> reaction wasn't really the one I'd liked more[1].

Thank you very much for your reply.

> http://groups.google.com.au/group/debian-sage/browse_thread/thread/20e092f1b11e6f02

I did not know about this reaction, but I can understand where they are
coming from: it seems that sage is updated regularly and the Debian
packaging is rotting in unstable. [1]

[1] http://packages.qa.debian.org/s/sagemath.html

The package is not installable for quite some time and I think that, in
the current situation, it will never be part of any stable release,
which is one of the justifications for it to be removed from the
archives.

> Anyway, maybe these issues can be solved, if we talk with upstream and,
> above all, we can find a few people to comaintain the package.

If I understood them correctly, they are not 100% opposed to the idea of
having sagemath: they are only opposed to having the package too outdated.

> Working with a non collaborative upstream would be very frustrating on
> such big package (it is frustrating on much more stupid packages...).

Well, I think that a public repository for packaging it would be a very
good start (Tim, do you have any?). Some of the big tasks that I would
like to see addressed regarding sagemath would be:

* getting a first draft package done, even if "improper for public
  consumption".
* relaxing the huge amount of dependencies (dropping them to recommends,
  instead).
* modularizing things as much as possible.
* getting patches fed up to other upstream packages.

Of course, packaging sagemath is a very big task, basing myself only on
the list of programs that it embraces.

> Unfortunately, I won't come (even if I hope to be in Banja Luka 2011).
> Good luck! :-)

Thanks. I hope to go also to Banja Luka. :-)

> After announcing my interest, I didn't invest any time in sage, partly
> because of upstream's reaction I mentioned above, partly because I
> wanted to finish to work on some packages I'm already busy on.

OK. I did not have time to play with it yet, but now that I completed
some tasks (read: playing with the port of xpdf to use libpoppler and
other small stuff), I think that I can reserve some time for another
package, especially if we can put everything under a git repository,
which will be convenient for the development.

And I am happy to teach the little that I know about maintaining
projects with git.

> However, I really don't think that sagemath will be part of squeeze, I
> guess we'll have to wait at least squeeze+1.

I am not very ambitious regarding getting it to be part of squeeze, but
just having it in Debian, in a working situation is way better than the
current situation. :-)

Seeing upstream's reaction makes me think that, perhaps, the best option
for packaging sagemath would be to place it in volatile [2], so that it can
always be close to what upstream wants and also what users can use.

[2] http://www.debian.org/volatile/

Regards,

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://rb.doesntexist.org : Packages for LaTeX : algorithms.berlios.de
DebianQA: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=rbrito%40ime.usp.br

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:57:09 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #50 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi.

Rogério, you can drop me from recipients list, I'm already subscribed to
the bug and to debian-science.

Il 19/07/2010 18:26, Rogério Brito ha scritto:
>> Anyway, maybe these issues can be solved, if we talk with upstream and,
>> above all, we can find a few people to comaintain the package.
> 
> If I understood them correctly, they are not 100% opposed to the idea of
> having sagemath: they are only opposed to having the package too outdated.

Yes, that's my interpretation too. But I think that, in order to have
good communication with upstream, we'll have to show that the package
can be maintained and won't fall forgotten as last time. This won't be
easy. I agree that the first pace is to try again to have a working
package, then understand which are the difficulties and decide whether
we're able to go forth with it.

>> Working with a non collaborative upstream would be very frustrating on
>> such big package (it is frustrating on much more stupid packages...).
> 
> Well, I think that a public repository for packaging it would be a very
> good start (Tim, do you have any?). Some of the big tasks that I would
> like to see addressed regarding sagemath would be:
> 
> * getting a first draft package done, even if "improper for public
>   consumption".
> * relaxing the huge amount of dependencies (dropping them to recommends,
>   instead).
> * modularizing things as much as possible.
> * getting patches fed up to other upstream packages.
> 
> Of course, packaging sagemath is a very big task, basing myself only on
> the list of programs that it embraces.

I fully agree with this program.

> OK. I did not have time to play with it yet, but now that I completed
> some tasks (read: playing with the port of xpdf to use libpoppler and
> other small stuff), I think that I can reserve some time for another
> package, especially if we can put everything under a git repository,
> which will be convenient for the development.
> 
> And I am happy to teach the little that I know about maintaining
> projects with git.

+1 for git, is my preferred VCS too.

>> However, I really don't think that sagemath will be part of squeeze, I
>> guess we'll have to wait at least squeeze+1.
> 
> I am not very ambitious regarding getting it to be part of squeeze, but
> just having it in Debian, in a working situation is way better than the
> current situation. :-)

Of course! :-)

> Seeing upstream's reaction makes me think that, perhaps, the best option
> for packaging sagemath would be to place it in volatile [2], so that it can
> always be close to what upstream wants and also what users can use.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to put such a complex package in volatile:
it's very difficult to make an update without disrupting things, I guess.

Anyway, I think the main problem is not having an old package, but one
that is not working. Having an old package with perhaps old, but
working, features seems to be tolerable (and, as a matter of fact, it's
what happen to most stable packages).

Ciao, Giovanni.
-- 
Giovanni Mascellani <mascellani@poisson.phc.unipi.it>
Pisa, Italy

Web: http://poisson.phc.unipi.it/~mascellani
Jabber: g.mascellani@jabber.org / giovanni@elabor.homelinux.org

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Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:48:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Rogério Brito <rbrito@gmail.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:48:04 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #55 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hi there.

Sorry for not replying earlier, but things got very hectic with trips
and so on.

On 07/03/2010 06:48 PM, Giovanni Mascellani wrote:
> Tim, if you can explain a bit how you used to maintain sagemath, I could
> get that as a starting point for the new package.
(...)

Just for the record, I am here at DebConf 10, in NY. If anybody happens
to want to discuss anything regarding sagemath (or, better, hacking at
least an infra-structure), that would be awesome.

If any of you is also here at DC10, just drop me a note and it will be a
pleasure to meet you in person. My room is 406 (Furnald).

Regards,

Rogério Brito.

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Rogério Brito <rbrito@ime.usp.br>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #60 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hi there.

2010/8/2 David Bremner <bremner@unb.ca>:
> With some trepidation I reply to such a long list of addresses...

I am acting here with some inpunity, but for a good cause. :)

> There will be a Debian math software BoF (discussion session) on
> Thursday August 5 at columbia. Packaging sage would be on topic.  Please
> see/edit
>
>      http://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/Debconf10/Unofficial/Talks/MathematicalSoftware

Thanks. I just put some paragraphs there stating the current
situation, as I see it. If I don't happen to miss the BoF (I'm having
difficulties getting in sync with the projects in the morning), I wil
raise all those points in person.


Regards,

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{mackenzie,ime.usp}.br : GPG key 1024D/7C2CAEB8
http://www.ime.usp.br/~rbrito : http://meusite.mackenzie.com.br/rbrito
Projects: algorithms.berlios.de : lame.sf.net : vrms.alioth.debian.org

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>:
Bug#573538; Package sagemath. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:57:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:57:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #65 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

retitle 573538 RM: sagemath -- RoQA; broken and outdated; RC-buggy
reassign 573538 ftp.debian.org
severity 573538 normal
thanks

Hi,

I'm requesting the removal of the sagemath package. It is completely
outdated in Debian, which makes everybody unhappy (upstream developers,
users).

It would still be nice to have this software in Debian, but coordinated
efforts and discussions with the upstream community to resolve the open
issues about dependencies on all other pieces of software are required
first.

The current Debian packaging can be found on
http://snapshot.debian.org/package/sagemath/3.0.5dfsg-5.1/, even if I'm
not too sure that it will be useful as a basis to package sagemath 4+.

- Lucas

Changed Bug title to 'RM: sagemath -- RoQA; broken and outdated; RC-buggy' from 'Please remove the sagemath package' Request was from Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> to control@bugs.debian.org. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:57:10 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Bug reassigned from package 'sagemath' to 'ftp.debian.org'. Request was from Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> to control@bugs.debian.org. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:57:11 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Bug No longer marked as found in versions sagemath/3.0.5dfsg-5.1. Request was from Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> to control@bugs.debian.org. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:57:11 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Severity set to 'normal' from 'grave' Request was from Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> to control@bugs.debian.org. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:57:12 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>:
Bug#573538; Package ftp.debian.org. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:24:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@MIT.EDU>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:24:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #78 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hello all,

I'm the maintainer of the sagemath package.  Due to the package taking 8 
months to get through NEW (resulting in it starting out 8 months out of 
date) and my founding a startup around the time it entered NEW, I've never 
had the time to update it across the original 8 months of backlog caused 
by the NEW process.

I would support removing the package from Debian.  An alternative that I 
think would be better is to move it to Debian experimental (so that if I 
find someone to work on incrementally updating it, we can do that without 
having the package go through NEW a second time).

Having done some of the work on updating the current sagemath package to 
sagemath 4+, I'm fairly confident that upstream hasn't changed the 
structure of their build system and the old package will will save a lot 
of time for future work on producing a package compliant with Debian 
policy (e.g. it handles the issues involved in sagemath being distributed 
as a tarball containing a large number of .tar.bz2 files, of which maybe 
10 are original sagemath code and the rest are dependencies, and contains 
all the code you need to make sagemath link against the system libraries).

That said, I don't foresee having the time myself, and have yet to find 
anyone else who is serious about taking up this project.  Upstream is, I 
think rightly, currently more interested in getting setup their own apt 
repository that distributes a working sagemath package that just bundles 
all the dependencies (it's much easier to do, but would not be suitable 
for inclusion in Debian).

	Best regards,
	-Tim Abbott

On Thu, 5 Aug 2010, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

> retitle 573538 RM: sagemath -- RoQA; broken and outdated; RC-buggy
> reassign 573538 ftp.debian.org
> severity 573538 normal
> thanks
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm requesting the removal of the sagemath package. It is completely
> outdated in Debian, which makes everybody unhappy (upstream developers,
> users).
> 
> It would still be nice to have this software in Debian, but coordinated
> efforts and discussions with the upstream community to resolve the open
> issues about dependencies on all other pieces of software are required
> first.
> 
> The current Debian packaging can be found on
> http://snapshot.debian.org/package/sagemath/3.0.5dfsg-5.1/, even if I'm
> not too sure that it will be useful as a basis to package sagemath 4+.
> 
> - Lucas
> 
> 
>

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>:
Bug#573538; Package ftp.debian.org. (Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to kamaraju kusumanchi <raju.mailinglists@gmail.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:45:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #83 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 8:13 AM, Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> wrote:
> On 06/08/10 at 07:55 -0400, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
>> According to
>> https://buildd.debian.org/fetch.cgi?pkg=sagemath;ver=3.0.5dfsg-5.1;arch=alpha;stamp=1263382158
>> the build of sagemath 3.0.5dfsg-5.1 failed due to a missing dependency on
>> libiml-dev . This package is now available. Could someone please reschedule
>> a build on alpha for sagemath?
>
> That's probably not necessary, as the removal of sagemath has been
> requested (#573538).
>
> - Lucas
>

Hi Lucas,

I am interested in seeing sagemath in Debian. I'd like to package it
for Debian with the help of others (of course). I am also willing to
spend time, maintain and collaborate with upstream. Based on the
discussions in bug:573538 there are many others who are interested to
help get sagemath into Debian.

Here is my approach. It is based on the discussions from debconf10
talks yesterday.

1) My first step is to get one version working on all the releasable
architectures in unstable.

2) Have a git repository set up as Andreas Tille suggested on
debian-science to make it easy for people to collaborate. With a
monstrous package like sagemath, we really need a team than just a
single person.

3) Next, I want to go step by step from 3.0.5dfsg-5.1 all the way upto
4.5.1. So, I want to work on packaging 3.0.6 instead of 4.5.1 . Sure,
the upstream may not like it. But this way we will have a solid
understanding of what actually are the dependencies on the package.

4) One of the points that was brought up in yesterday's discussions is
regression tests and unit tests. For example, even though sagemath
claims you need package foo version 4.5, may be in reality you just
need foo-3.0. If foo-3.0 is available in Debian unstable but not
foo-4.5 then we are in decent shape.

Anyway, I am probably talking very naively without realizing the
complexities involved. But I am willing to take the first small
step...

thanks
raju
-- 
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/

Acknowledgement sent to CJ Fearnley <cjf@CJFearnley.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:12:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #88 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Fri, Aug 06, 2010 at 10:44:00AM -0400, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 8:13 AM, Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> wrote:
> > On 06/08/10 at 07:55 -0400, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
> >> According to
> >> https://buildd.debian.org/fetch.cgi?pkg=sagemath;ver=3.0.5dfsg-5.1;arch=alpha;stamp=1263382158
> >> the build of sagemath 3.0.5dfsg-5.1 failed due to a missing dependency on
> >> libiml-dev . This package is now available. Could someone please reschedule
> >> a build on alpha for sagemath?
> >
> > That's probably not necessary, as the removal of sagemath has been
> > requested (#573538).
> >
> > - Lucas
> >
> 
> Hi Lucas,
> 
> I am interested in seeing sagemath in Debian. I'd like to package it
> for Debian with the help of others (of course). I am also willing to
> spend time, maintain and collaborate with upstream. Based on the
> discussions in bug:573538 there are many others who are interested to
> help get sagemath into Debian.
> 
> Here is my approach. It is based on the discussions from debconf10
> talks yesterday.
> 
> 3) Next, I want to go step by step from 3.0.5dfsg-5.1 all the way upto
> 4.5.1. So, I want to work on packaging 3.0.6 instead of 4.5.1 . Sure,
> the upstream may not like it. But this way we will have a solid
> understanding of what actually are the dependencies on the package.

Kamaraju,

Overall I like your plan.  And I'd like to help.

I do not like starting with version 3.0.6.  I think such an old version
is unlikely to attract many users and hence testing will be suboptimal.
In addition, upstream reports that upgrading to 4.5 is currently broken
(http://sagemath.org/mirror/src/changelogs/sage-4.5.1.txt), so we
know that older releases will incur substantial development challenges
that even upstream is not supporting.  Moreover, upstream releases very
frequently (lately releases have occurred more often than once per month),
so by the end of the squeeze+1 cycle we will experience many, many upgrade
tests.  So adding to the testing burden by doing a "dry run" with legacy
versions seems to me to be a very inefficient use of volunteer time.
Indeed, until the packaging process becomes very efficient (which might
take substantial time), I think it would be smarter to conserve limited
volunteer resources by not packaging some of the upstream releases.

So I think we should start with version 4.5.1 (or even version 4.5.2 if
it comes out before our planning and team organizing work is done).

Note:  I dropped debian-release@lists.debian.org and
ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org from the CC: list as we are moving away
from their areas of concern.

-- 
We are on a spaceship; a beautiful one.  It took billions of years to develop.
We're not going to get another.  Now, how do we make this spaceship work?
  -- Buckminster Fuller

CJ Fearnley                |  Explorer in Universe
cjf@CJFearnley.com         |  Design Science Revolutionary
http://www.CJFearnley.com  |  "Dare to be Naive" -- Bucky Fuller

Acknowledgement sent to Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:12:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #93 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On 06/08/10 at 10:44 -0400, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 8:13 AM, Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> wrote:
> > On 06/08/10 at 07:55 -0400, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
> >> According to
> >> https://buildd.debian.org/fetch.cgi?pkg=sagemath;ver=3.0.5dfsg-5.1;arch=alpha;stamp=1263382158
> >> the build of sagemath 3.0.5dfsg-5.1 failed due to a missing dependency on
> >> libiml-dev . This package is now available. Could someone please reschedule
> >> a build on alpha for sagemath?
> >
> > That's probably not necessary, as the removal of sagemath has been
> > requested (#573538).
> >
> > - Lucas
> >
> 
> Hi Lucas,
> 
> I am interested in seeing sagemath in Debian. I'd like to package it
> for Debian with the help of others (of course). I am also willing to
> spend time, maintain and collaborate with upstream. Based on the
> discussions in bug:573538 there are many others who are interested to
> help get sagemath into Debian.
> 
> Here is my approach. It is based on the discussions from debconf10
> talks yesterday.
> 
> 1) My first step is to get one version working on all the releasable
> architectures in unstable.
> 
> 2) Have a git repository set up as Andreas Tille suggested on
> debian-science to make it easy for people to collaborate. With a
> monstrous package like sagemath, we really need a team than just a
> single person.
> 
> 3) Next, I want to go step by step from 3.0.5dfsg-5.1 all the way upto
> 4.5.1. So, I want to work on packaging 3.0.6 instead of 4.5.1 . Sure,
> the upstream may not like it. But this way we will have a solid
> understanding of what actually are the dependencies on the package.
> 
> 4) One of the points that was brought up in yesterday's discussions is
> regression tests and unit tests. For example, even though sagemath
> claims you need package foo version 4.5, may be in reality you just
> need foo-3.0. If foo-3.0 is available in Debian unstable but not
> foo-4.5 then we are in decent shape.
> 
> Anyway, I am probably talking very naively without realizing the
> complexities involved. But I am willing to take the first small
> step...

My understanding is that upstream is very unhappy with the fact that
Debian is shipping an old version, as it generates support requests for
something that they don't want to support (3.0.5 was released on
2008-07-11).

Removing the package from unstable doesn't prevent you from working on
the package. It's just a way to clean up Debian. It will be very easy to
re-upload when you will have something that builds in i386 and amd64
(though it might be better to upload to experimental, as I doubt that
you will have something in a releasable state before a few months).

As for the strategy of working on the 3.X release or on the 4.X release,
I don't think that we should try to release something which is not
closer to the latest upstream release than 3.0.5. But I can't comment on
working incrementally from 3.0.5 vs working on 4.X directly.

- Lucas

Message #98 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

> Kamaraju,
>
> Overall I like your plan.  And I'd like to help.
>
> I do not like starting with version 3.0.6.  I think such an old version
> is unlikely to attract many users and hence testing will be suboptimal.
> In addition, upstream reports that upgrading to 4.5 is currently broken
> (http://sagemath.org/mirror/src/changelogs/sage-4.5.1.txt), so we
> know that older releases will incur substantial development challenges
> that even upstream is not supporting.  Moreover, upstream releases very
> frequently (lately releases have occurred more often than once per month),
> so by the end of the squeeze+1 cycle we will experience many, many upgrade
> tests.  So adding to the testing burden by doing a "dry run" with legacy
> versions seems to me to be a very inefficient use of volunteer time.
> Indeed, until the packaging process becomes very efficient (which might
> take substantial time), I think it would be smarter to conserve limited
> volunteer resources by not packaging some of the upstream releases.
>

You have a point. But the way I see it is this.

Sagemath is constantly updated at a rate greater than debian can cope
up. I highly doubt we will ever be releasing the .deb packages as fast
as they release the .tgz files. So, at some point we have to skip
releases and provide as latest debs as possible. I understand that.

But now the situation is a bit different. Are we sure that we have all
the deps of sagemath packaged into Debian? If the answer is yes, then
I am happy to start with 4.5 right away.

If the answer is no then the next question is what is the minimal
version that we can package given the current set of packages
available in Debian. There is no clear cut approach. we need to go
back and forth a bit. We may need to file some ITPs and work on some
transitions which is where the team becomes important.

As for the support requests from users, sooner or later they realize
that if there is a problem they have to go with the later version
anyway. A bit of that frustration is probably good as it will drive
some to come and take part in packaging sage for Debian.

thanks
raju

Message #103 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

>
> My understanding is that upstream is very unhappy with the fact that
> Debian is shipping an old version, as it generates support requests for
> something that they don't want to support (3.0.5 was released on
> 2008-07-11).
>

Right. One of the points we have drive home to the users is that if
they have a problem with the current version they have to try the
latest available version before reporting that bug to either BTS or
upstream. This again intersects a bit with the regression tests I
mentioned before.

Normally, I'd expect that users DO NOT have the infrastructure to
install the latest version. But if they pop up their problem on
debian-science then one of us can test it and tell them if the problem
goes away by compiling/installing the latest release. If the problem
persists in the latest release, then it gets reported upstream.

This happens to me all the time with gfortran. I'll come across a code
that goes boink when I use the current version of Debian. However, the
gfortran devs only care if the problem is reproducible on the svn
head. Due to lack of man power, they don't backport their patches. So,
I ask on their mailing list if the problem is fixed in subsequent
version. If the answer is yes, then I am happy to upgrade my gfortran.
If the answer is no, then I report the bug.

Users do not want to install the latest version without knowing if
their problem is fixed in the latest version. But if they know that
the problem is fixed, then they make every effort to get that version.

> Removing the package from unstable doesn't prevent you from working on
> the package. It's just a way to clean up Debian. It will be very easy to
> re-upload when you will have something that builds in i386 and amd64
> (though it might be better to upload to experimental, as I doubt that
> you will have something in a releasable state before a few months).

I agree. Actually removing the package might do some good in this
case. We can concentrate on just i386 and amd64 and worry about other
architectures later on. This might actually speed up things a bit.

>
> As for the strategy of working on the 3.X release or on the 4.X release,
> I don't think that we should try to release something which is not
> closer to the latest upstream release than 3.0.5.

Yes. The software released in Debian should be close to the latest 4.X
release. I am thinking of having the intermediate versions somewhere
in a private repository.

Acknowledgement sent to Alex Ghitza <aghitza@gmail.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:39:05 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #108 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 18:00:19 -0400, kamaraju kusumanchi <raju.mailinglists@gmail.com> wrote:
> Users do not want to install the latest version without knowing if
> their problem is fixed in the latest version. But if they know that
> the problem is fixed, then they make every effort to get that version.

This is reasonably easy to do for Sage (once the user knows/thinks about
the option): there is a public Sage server at sagenb.org which is kept
fairly well-synchronised with the latest Sage release.  At the moment,
it is running sage-4.5.  So if I'm a user hitting a problem with
sage-3.0.6, the easiest way to check whether it's worth upgrading is to
try it on sagenb.org.  (Asking on the sage-support mailing list is
another way.)

Best,
Alex

-- 
Alex Ghitza -- http://aghitza.org/
Lecturer in Mathematics -- The University of Melbourne -- Australia

Reply sent to Debian Archive Maintenance <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>:
You have taken responsibility. (Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:09:08 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Notification sent to Florent Hivert <florent.hivert@univ-rouen.fr>:
Bug acknowledged by developer. (Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:09:08 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #113 received at 573538-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

We believe that the bug you reported is now fixed; the following
package(s) have been removed from unstable:

  sagemath | 3.0.5dfsg-5.1 | source, amd64
  sagemath | 3.0.5dfsg-5.1+b1 | hppa, i386, ia64, powerpc, s390

------------------- Reason -------------------
RoQA; broken and outdated; RC-buggy
----------------------------------------------

Note that the package(s) have simply been removed from the tag
database and may (or may not) still be in the pool; this is not a bug.
The package(s) will be physically removed automatically when no suite
references them (and in the case of source, when no binary references
it).  Please also remember that the changes have been done on the
master archive (ftp-master.debian.org) and will not propagate to any
mirrors (ftp.debian.org included) until the next cron.daily run at the
earliest.

Packages are usually not removed from testing by hand. Testing tracks
unstable and will automatically remove packages which were removed
from unstable when removing them from testing causes no dependency
problems. The release team can force a removal from testing if it is
really needed, please contact them if this should be the case.

Bugs which have been reported against this package are not automatically
removed from the Bug Tracking System.  Please check all open bugs and
close them or re-assign them to another package if the removed package
was superseded by another one.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 573538@bugs.debian.org.

The full log for this bug can be viewed at http://bugs.debian.org/573538

This message was generated automatically; if you believe that there is
a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing
ftpmaster@debian.org.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Luca Falavigna (the ftpmaster behind the curtain)

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>:
Bug#573538; Package ftp.debian.org. (Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:45:18 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Acknowledgement sent to tabbott@ksplice.com:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:45:18 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #118 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Fri, 6 Aug 2010, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote:

> > Removing the package from unstable doesn't prevent you from working on
> > the package. It's just a way to clean up Debian. It will be very easy to
> > re-upload when you will have something that builds in i386 and amd64
> > (though it might be better to upload to experimental, as I doubt that
> > you will have something in a releasable state before a few months).
> 
> I agree. Actually removing the package might do some good in this
> case. We can concentrate on just i386 and amd64 and worry about other
> architectures later on. This might actually speed up things a bit.

I spent basically no time on non-x86 architectures; and as it turned out, 
the package built successfully on most of them anyway.  Ignoring 
everything except x86 is probably the right approach.

> > As for the strategy of working on the 3.X release or on the 4.X release,
> > I don't think that we should try to release something which is not
> > closer to the latest upstream release than 3.0.5.
> 
> Yes. The software released in Debian should be close to the latest 4.X
> release. I am thinking of having the intermediate versions somewhere
> in a private repository.

I certainly made extensive use of private repositories when developing 
the 3.0.5 package.

	-Tim Abbott

Message #123 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Fri, 6 Aug 2010, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote:

> > Kamaraju,
> >
> > Overall I like your plan.  And I'd like to help.
> >
> > I do not like starting with version 3.0.6.  I think such an old version
> > is unlikely to attract many users and hence testing will be suboptimal.
> > In addition, upstream reports that upgrading to 4.5 is currently broken
> > (http://sagemath.org/mirror/src/changelogs/sage-4.5.1.txt), so we
> > know that older releases will incur substantial development challenges
> > that even upstream is not supporting.  Moreover, upstream releases very
> > frequently (lately releases have occurred more often than once per month),
> > so by the end of the squeeze+1 cycle we will experience many, many upgrade
> > tests.  So adding to the testing burden by doing a "dry run" with legacy
> > versions seems to me to be a very inefficient use of volunteer time.
> > Indeed, until the packaging process becomes very efficient (which might
> > take substantial time), I think it would be smarter to conserve limited
> > volunteer resources by not packaging some of the upstream releases.
> >
> 
> You have a point. But the way I see it is this.
> 
> Sagemath is constantly updated at a rate greater than debian can cope
> up. I highly doubt we will ever be releasing the .deb packages as fast
> as they release the .tgz files. So, at some point we have to skip
> releases and provide as latest debs as possible. I understand that.
> 
> But now the situation is a bit different. Are we sure that we have all
> the deps of sagemath packaged into Debian? If the answer is yes, then
> I am happy to start with 4.5 right away.

I think there are a couple new dependencies that are not in Debian; there 
weren't any as of version 4.0 or so.  I would recommend first getting 
sagemath working building the copies contained in the sagemath tarball, 
and then package them separately for Debian and switch over later in 
development (this is how I did the original development, and it was much 
easier to debug problems incrementally).

I suspect that starting by doing the work incrementally with 3.0.6 first 
might be easier than starting with 4.5 to begin with.  There's a good 
chance you'll want to switch tacts once you get the hang of it, but I 
think if you try migrating the current package to 4.5, you'll end up 
feeling overwhelmed by the problems and give up.  Some partial progress of 
mine on updating direct to 3.4.1 (shortly before 4.0) is available, in 
case you find it useful (I don't think I was very far along):

http://web.mit.edu/sage/www/sage-3.4.1-debian.tar.gz

My experience is that one spends most of your time working on sagemath 
packaging on (1) debugging and (2) waiting for it to build (it took about 
30 minutes to build on the server I was using).  When I tried to update 
direct from 3.0.5 to 3.4.1, I found debugging problems resulting from 
upstream changes took most of the time.  I bet it would be much easier 
when you can find the upstream change that caused the problem; since each 
sagemath version has relatively small changes, that can make life easier, 
especially if you're still getting used to dealing with the Sage build 
system.

One thing that I should warn you about is that now Debian has 
substantially newer versions of various packages than Sage 3.0.5 was 
designed for, and in some cases that will break things.  The current Sage 
3.0.5 package was prepared for Lenny, and then tweaked a bit to keep it 
compiling on newer stuff.  So it's possible that the incremental approach 
will prove to be painful and you don't want to do it.  But if I were you, 
I would probably start by just trying to do 3.0.5 -> 3.0.6, just because I 
think that'll help build confidence and give you a better sense of the 
nature of the challenge than going straight to 4.5.

But it's really up to you.  I don't have the time to help more than just 
providing background information on how I did it and what problems I 
encountered.

	-Tim Abbott

> If the answer is no then the next question is what is the minimal
> version that we can package given the current set of packages
> available in Debian. There is no clear cut approach. we need to go
> back and forth a bit. We may need to file some ITPs and work on some
> transitions which is where the team becomes important.
> 
> As for the support requests from users, sooner or later they realize
> that if there is a problem they have to go with the later version
> anyway. A bit of that frustration is probably good as it will drive
> some to come and take part in packaging sage for Debian.

Acknowledgement sent to William Stein <wstein@gmail.com>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Sat, 07 Aug 2010 18:03:03 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #128 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 10:49 AM,  <tabbott@ksplice.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 6 Aug 2010, kamaraju kusumanchi wrote:
>
>> > Kamaraju,
>> >
>> > Overall I like your plan.  And I'd like to help.
>> >
>> > I do not like starting with version 3.0.6.  I think such an old version
>> > is unlikely to attract many users and hence testing will be suboptimal.
>> > In addition, upstream reports that upgrading to 4.5 is currently broken
>> > (http://sagemath.org/mirror/src/changelogs/sage-4.5.1.txt), so we
>> > know that older releases will incur substantial development challenges
>> > that even upstream is not supporting.  Moreover, upstream releases very
>> > frequently (lately releases have occurred more often than once per month),
>> > so by the end of the squeeze+1 cycle we will experience many, many upgrade
>> > tests.  So adding to the testing burden by doing a "dry run" with legacy
>> > versions seems to me to be a very inefficient use of volunteer time.
>> > Indeed, until the packaging process becomes very efficient (which might
>> > take substantial time), I think it would be smarter to conserve limited
>> > volunteer resources by not packaging some of the upstream releases.
>> >
>>
>> You have a point. But the way I see it is this.
>>
>> Sagemath is constantly updated at a rate greater than debian can cope
>> up. I highly doubt we will ever be releasing the .deb packages as fast
>> as they release the .tgz files. So, at some point we have to skip
>> releases and provide as latest debs as possible. I understand that.
>>
>> But now the situation is a bit different. Are we sure that we have all
>> the deps of sagemath packaged into Debian? If the answer is yes, then
>> I am happy to start with 4.5 right away.
>
> I think there are a couple new dependencies that are not in Debian; there
> weren't any as of version 4.0 or so.  I would recommend first getting
> sagemath working building the copies contained in the sagemath tarball,
> and then package them separately for Debian and switch over later in
> development (this is how I did the original development, and it was much
> easier to debug problems incrementally).
>
> I suspect that starting by doing the work incrementally with 3.0.6 first
> might be easier than starting with 4.5 to begin with.  There's a good
> chance you'll want to switch tacts once you get the hang of it, but I
> think if you try migrating the current package to 4.5, you'll end up
> feeling overwhelmed by the problems and give up.  Some partial progress of
> mine on updating direct to 3.4.1 (shortly before 4.0) is available, in
> case you find it useful (I don't think I was very far along):
>
> http://web.mit.edu/sage/www/sage-3.4.1-debian.tar.gz
>
> My experience is that one spends most of your time working on sagemath
> packaging on (1) debugging and (2) waiting for it to build (it took about
> 30 minutes to build on the server I was using).  When I tried to update

Sage 4.5.x will take a lot longer than 30 minutes if you don't build
in parallel.
If you build the sagemath package in parallel in can take as little as
3 or 4 minutes
on sage.math.washington.edu

 -- William

> direct from 3.0.5 to 3.4.1, I found debugging problems resulting from
> upstream changes took most of the time.  I bet it would be much easier
> when you can find the upstream change that caused the problem; since each
> sagemath version has relatively small changes, that can make life easier,
> especially if you're still getting used to dealing with the Sage build
> system.
>
> One thing that I should warn you about is that now Debian has
> substantially newer versions of various packages than Sage 3.0.5 was
> designed for, and in some cases that will break things.  The current Sage
> 3.0.5 package was prepared for Lenny, and then tweaked a bit to keep it
> compiling on newer stuff.  So it's possible that the incremental approach
> will prove to be painful and you don't want to do it.  But if I were you,
> I would probably start by just trying to do 3.0.5 -> 3.0.6, just because I
> think that'll help build confidence and give you a better sense of the
> nature of the challenge than going straight to 4.5.
>
> But it's really up to you.  I don't have the time to help more than just
> providing background information on how I did it and what problems I
> encountered.
>
>        -Tim Abbott
>
>> If the answer is no then the next question is what is the minimal
>> version that we can package given the current set of packages
>> available in Debian. There is no clear cut approach. we need to go
>> back and forth a bit. We may need to file some ITPs and work on some
>> transitions which is where the team becomes important.
>>
>> As for the support requests from users, sooner or later they realize
>> that if there is a problem they have to go with the later version
>> anyway. A bit of that frustration is probably good as it will drive
>> some to come and take part in packaging sage for Debian.
>
> --
> To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
> URL: http://www.sagemath.org
>



-- 
William Stein
Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org

Acknowledgement sent to Tim Abbott <tabbott@MIT.EDU>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian FTP Master <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>. (Sat, 07 Aug 2010 18:06:13 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

Message #133 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, William Stein wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 10:49 AM,  <tabbott@ksplice.com> wrote:
> > I think there are a couple new dependencies that are not in Debian; there
> > weren't any as of version 4.0 or so.  I would recommend first getting
> > sagemath working building the copies contained in the sagemath tarball,
> > and then package them separately for Debian and switch over later in
> > development (this is how I did the original development, and it was much
> > easier to debug problems incrementally).
> >
> > I suspect that starting by doing the work incrementally with 3.0.6 first
> > might be easier than starting with 4.5 to begin with.  There's a good
> > chance you'll want to switch tacts once you get the hang of it, but I
> > think if you try migrating the current package to 4.5, you'll end up
> > feeling overwhelmed by the problems and give up.  Some partial progress of
> > mine on updating direct to 3.4.1 (shortly before 4.0) is available, in
> > case you find it useful (I don't think I was very far along):
> >
> > http://web.mit.edu/sage/www/sage-3.4.1-debian.tar.gz
> >
> > My experience is that one spends most of your time working on sagemath
> > packaging on (1) debugging and (2) waiting for it to build (it took about
> > 30 minutes to build on the server I was using).  When I tried to update
> 
> Sage 4.5.x will take a lot longer than 30 minutes if you don't build
> in parallel.
> If you build the sagemath package in parallel in can take as little as
> 3 or 4 minutes
> on sage.math.washington.edu

Yeah, unfortunately, the server I was using had only 2 cores.

Also, I should note that the 30 minutes was just the time to build the ~10 
spkgs that weren't being dealt with as packages -- this was with using 
system packages for all the dependencies (I imagine your number is for 
building the whole thing?)

	-Tim Abbott

> 
>  -- William
> 
> > direct from 3.0.5 to 3.4.1, I found debugging problems resulting from
> > upstream changes took most of the time.  I bet it would be much easier
> > when you can find the upstream change that caused the problem; since each
> > sagemath version has relatively small changes, that can make life easier,
> > especially if you're still getting used to dealing with the Sage build
> > system.
> >
> > One thing that I should warn you about is that now Debian has
> > substantially newer versions of various packages than Sage 3.0.5 was
> > designed for, and in some cases that will break things.  The current Sage
> > 3.0.5 package was prepared for Lenny, and then tweaked a bit to keep it
> > compiling on newer stuff.  So it's possible that the incremental approach
> > will prove to be painful and you don't want to do it.  But if I were you,
> > I would probably start by just trying to do 3.0.5 -> 3.0.6, just because I
> > think that'll help build confidence and give you a better sense of the
> > nature of the challenge than going straight to 4.5.
> >
> > But it's really up to you.  I don't have the time to help more than just
> > providing background information on how I did it and what problems I
> > encountered.
> >
> >        -Tim Abbott
> >
> >> If the answer is no then the next question is what is the minimal
> >> version that we can package given the current set of packages
> >> available in Debian. There is no clear cut approach. we need to go
> >> back and forth a bit. We may need to file some ITPs and work on some
> >> transitions which is where the team becomes important.
> >>
> >> As for the support requests from users, sooner or later they realize
> >> that if there is a problem they have to go with the later version
> >> anyway. A bit of that frustration is probably good as it will drive
> >> some to come and take part in packaging sage for Debian.
> >
> > --
> > To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
> > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
> > URL: http://www.sagemath.org
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> William Stein
> Professor of Mathematics
> University of Washington
> http://wstein.org
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "debian-sage" group.
> To post to this group, send email to debian-sage@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to debian-sage+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/debian-sage?hl=en.
> 
>

Message #138 received at 573538@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 11:03 AM, Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, William Stein wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 10:49 AM,  <tabbott@ksplice.com> wrote:
>> > I think there are a couple new dependencies that are not in Debian; there
>> > weren't any as of version 4.0 or so.  I would recommend first getting
>> > sagemath working building the copies contained in the sagemath tarball,
>> > and then package them separately for Debian and switch over later in
>> > development (this is how I did the original development, and it was much
>> > easier to debug problems incrementally).
>> >
>> > I suspect that starting by doing the work incrementally with 3.0.6 first
>> > might be easier than starting with 4.5 to begin with.  There's a good
>> > chance you'll want to switch tacts once you get the hang of it, but I
>> > think if you try migrating the current package to 4.5, you'll end up
>> > feeling overwhelmed by the problems and give up.  Some partial progress of
>> > mine on updating direct to 3.4.1 (shortly before 4.0) is available, in
>> > case you find it useful (I don't think I was very far along):
>> >
>> > http://web.mit.edu/sage/www/sage-3.4.1-debian.tar.gz
>> >
>> > My experience is that one spends most of your time working on sagemath
>> > packaging on (1) debugging and (2) waiting for it to build (it took about
>> > 30 minutes to build on the server I was using).  When I tried to update
>>
>> Sage 4.5.x will take a lot longer than 30 minutes if you don't build
>> in parallel.
>> If you build the sagemath package in parallel in can take as little as
>> 3 or 4 minutes
>> on sage.math.washington.edu
>
> Yeah, unfortunately, the server I was using had only 2 cores.
>
> Also, I should note that the 30 minutes was just the time to build the ~10
> spkgs that weren't being dealt with as packages -- this was with using
> system packages for all the dependencies (I imagine your number is for
> building the whole thing?)

I was just thinking about the sage core Python/Cython library.  E.g.,
what gets built by

   sage -ba

William

>

>        -Tim Abbott
>
>>
>>  -- William
>>
>> > direct from 3.0.5 to 3.4.1, I found debugging problems resulting from
>> > upstream changes took most of the time.  I bet it would be much easier
>> > when you can find the upstream change that caused the problem; since each
>> > sagemath version has relatively small changes, that can make life easier,
>> > especially if you're still getting used to dealing with the Sage build
>> > system.
>> >
>> > One thing that I should warn you about is that now Debian has
>> > substantially newer versions of various packages than Sage 3.0.5 was
>> > designed for, and in some cases that will break things.  The current Sage
>> > 3.0.5 package was prepared for Lenny, and then tweaked a bit to keep it
>> > compiling on newer stuff.  So it's possible that the incremental approach
>> > will prove to be painful and you don't want to do it.  But if I were you,
>> > I would probably start by just trying to do 3.0.5 -> 3.0.6, just because I
>> > think that'll help build confidence and give you a better sense of the
>> > nature of the challenge than going straight to 4.5.
>> >
>> > But it's really up to you.  I don't have the time to help more than just
>> > providing background information on how I did it and what problems I
>> > encountered.
>> >
>> >        -Tim Abbott
>> >
>> >> If the answer is no then the next question is what is the minimal
>> >> version that we can package given the current set of packages
>> >> available in Debian. There is no clear cut approach. we need to go
>> >> back and forth a bit. We may need to file some ITPs and work on some
>> >> transitions which is where the team becomes important.
>> >>
>> >> As for the support requests from users, sooner or later they realize
>> >> that if there is a problem they have to go with the later version
>> >> anyway. A bit of that frustration is probably good as it will drive
>> >> some to come and take part in packaging sage for Debian.
>> >
>> > --
>> > To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com
>> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
>> > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel
>> > URL: http://www.sagemath.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> William Stein
>> Professor of Mathematics
>> University of Washington
>> http://wstein.org
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "debian-sage" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to debian-sage@googlegroups.com.
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to debian-sage+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
>> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/debian-sage?hl=en.
>>
>>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "debian-sage" group.
> To post to this group, send email to debian-sage@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to debian-sage+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/debian-sage?hl=en.
>
>



-- 
William Stein
Professor of Mathematics
University of Washington
http://wstein.org

Bug archived. Request was from Debbugs Internal Request <owner@bugs.debian.org> to internal_control@bugs.debian.org. (Sun, 05 Sep 2010 07:35:17 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).

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Debian Bug report logs - #573538 RM: sagemath -- RoQA; broken and outdated; RC-buggy

Debian Bug report logs - #573538
RM: sagemath -- RoQA; broken and outdated; RC-buggy