Debian Bug report logs - #816376
RM: owncloud -- ROM; PHP 7.0 Transition

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

From: David Prévot <taffit@debian.org>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2016 07:07:10 -0400

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Package: owncloud
Version: 7.0.12~dfsg-2
Severity: serious
Tags: upstream

Upstream doesn’t wish to see their software in Debian anymore. Unless
the situation changes in the next few months, owncloud will not be part
of Stretch.

Quoting the Debian Developer's Reference [3.1.4]:

“If you find that the upstream developers are or become hostile towards
Debian or the free software community, you may want to re-consider the
need to include the software in Debian. Sometimes the social cost to the
Debian community is not worth the benefits the software may bring.”

<https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/ch03#upstream-coordination>

Fedora also gave up a few months ago, the end of Adam Williamson message
applies roughly to us too (I just changed s/Fedora/Debian/):

”Upstream does of course provide ownCloud packages in an OBS repo. They
do not follow [Debian] web app packaging policies or unbundling rules,
and probably don't work very well with SELinux. Switching from the
[Debian] packages to the OBS ones is likely to require moving
various things around and config file editing and stuff. I'm not going
to document that, sorry. If anyone else does, though, that'd be great.“

<http://www.spinics.net/lists/fedora-devel/msg213491.html>

Regards

David

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Message #10 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org>

To: 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2016 13:14:46 +0100

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On Tuesday 01 March 2016 07:07:10 you wrote:
> Upstream doesn’t wish to see their software in Debian anymore. Unless
> the situation changes in the next few months, owncloud will not be part
> of Stretch.

As unfortunate as it is, I can't help but agree.

It can be a coincidence [1], but earlier today a 3.5 year old bug I reported 
upstream was closed without a proper explanation.

Diederik

[1] http://www.cbs.com/shows/ncis/photos/1003066/gibbs-rules/70310/gibbs-rule-39-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-coincidence-/

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Message #15 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de>

To: pkg-owncloud-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org, David Prévot <taffit@debian.org>, 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Pkg-owncloud-maintainers] Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2016 14:10:36 +0100

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On Dienstag, 1. März 2016 07:07:10 CET David Prévot wrote:
> Package: owncloud
> Version: 7.0.12~dfsg-2
> Severity: serious
> Tags: upstream
> 
> Upstream doesn’t wish to see their software in Debian anymore. Unless
> the situation changes in the next few months, owncloud will not be part
> of Stretch.

I am sad to read that you gave up for now, especially after you put so much 
work into making upgrading between Jessie and Stretch work.

I think I will remove Owncloud from my server again at some time and hope 
there will be a good alternative some day. Maybe when Owncloud has a more 
robust upgrading path and is supportable within Debian again.

I hope that you find more joy in maintaining your other packages.

Thank you for all of your work.

Best,
-- 
Martin

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Message #20 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Villemot <sebastien@debian.org>

To: 816376@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org>, Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de>

Subject: Re: Unfit upstream

Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:43:20 +0100

Dear David,

First, let me thank you for the work that you put into packaging
owncloud for Debian, it is really appreciated.

On Tue, 1 Mar 2016 07:07:10 -0400 David =?iso-8859-1?Q?Pr=E9vot?= <taffit@debian.org> wrote:

> Upstream doesn’t wish to see their software in Debian anymore. Unless
> the situation changes in the next few months, owncloud will not be part
> of Stretch.

Given that owncloud is such a useful and important package, and that
there is currently no credible alternative, this is really sad news, and
I am wondering whether this outcome could be avoided.

If I understand correctly, your decision is essentially based on social
issues (upstream hostile to Debian packaging), coupled to some technical
aspects (complex upgrade paths).

At first glance, this does not seem to prevent the package from staying
in Debian. Maybe this just means that the package needs a new
maintainer, who is willing to handle the tough interaction with upstream
and dealing with the technical issues (note that I am not applying for
the job).

You are certainly in a better position than me to ascertain whether the
package can stay in Debian or not, but I think that it would be useful
if you could give a little more background on the issues that you
encountered. And, if you think it makes sense to orphan the package,
that would help prospective new maintainers in making the decision to
adopt the package or not.

Cheers,

-- 
 .''`.    Sébastien Villemot
: :' :    Debian Developer
`. `'     http://sebastien.villemot.name
  `-      GPG Key: 4096R/381A7594

Message #25 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: David Prévot <david@tilapin.org>

To: Sébastien Villemot <sebastien@debian.org>, 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2016 22:32:41 -0400

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Hi Sébastien,

Le 07/03/2016 12:43, Sébastien Villemot a écrit :

> On Tue, 1 Mar 2016 07:07:10 -0400 David Prévot <taffit@debian.org> wrote:
> 
>> Upstream doesn’t wish to see their software in Debian anymore. Unless
>> the situation changes in the next few months, owncloud will not be part
>> of Stretch.

[…]
> I am wondering whether this outcome could be avoided.
> 
> If I understand correctly, your decision is essentially based on social
> issues (upstream hostile to Debian packaging), coupled to some technical
> aspects (complex upgrade paths).

That description fits roughly my view of the problem, yes.

> At first glance, this does not seem to prevent the package from staying
> in Debian. Maybe this just means that the package needs a new
> maintainer, who is willing to handle the tough interaction with upstream
> and dealing with the technical issues

That might work. I honestly doubt upstream would be willing to have its
pet project properly packaged by anyone in the near future (most
distributions gave up before us), but I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

> You are certainly in a better position than me to ascertain whether the
> package can stay in Debian or not, but I think that it would be useful
> if you could give a little more background on the issues that you
> encountered.

Reading the (recent) threads on both the maintainer and upstream lists
should help anyone to make their mind about it (I’ll give a few
pointers). Seeing how Debian is described in upstream staff blog posts
and issue tracker goes further down (I don’t wish to publish some direct
links from the BTS, but they’re not hard to find).

[ When I realized they were going to make our life way more painful ]
https://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-owncloud-maintainers/2016-February/002882.html

[ When they considered enforcing their trademark to throw us away ]
https://mailman.owncloud.org/pipermail/devel/2016-February/002106.html

> And, if you think it makes sense to orphan the package,
> that would help prospective new maintainers in making the decision to
> adopt the package or not.

I’m happy to give anyone write (and admin) access to our current
infrastructure. Feel free to open an RFA or O wnpp bug on my behalf if
you think it might help. But please, be aware that the enormous owncloud
package is only the tip of the iceberg: beyond the ~70 packages (some
were already removed via #816769) listed on the [DDPO], I was
maintaining a few more dozens on the PHP PEAR (and composer) Maintainers
team as well as some JavaScript packages.

DDPO:
https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=pkg-owncloud-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org

Regards

David

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Message #30 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jos Poortvliet <jos@owncloud.com>

To: pkg-owncloud-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org, Sébastien Villemot <sebastien@debian.org>, 816376@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de>, Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org>

Subject: Re: [Pkg-owncloud-maintainers] Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2016 03:03:28 -0400

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On Monday, March 7, 2016 5:43:20 PM AMT Sébastien Villemot wrote:
> Dear David,
> 
> First, let me thank you for the work that you put into packaging
> owncloud for Debian, it is really appreciated.
> 
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2016 07:07:10 -0400 David =?iso-8859-1?Q?Pr=E9vot?= <taffit@debian.org> wrote:
> 
> > Upstream doesn’t wish to see their software in Debian anymore. Unless
> > the situation changes in the next few months, owncloud will not be part
> > of Stretch.
> 
> Given that owncloud is such a useful and important package, and that
> there is currently no credible alternative, this is really sad news, and
> I am wondering whether this outcome could be avoided.
> 
> If I understand correctly, your decision is essentially based on social
> issues (upstream hostile to Debian packaging), coupled to some technical
> aspects (complex upgrade paths).

See my last email here - we'd love to have ownCloud included in Debian but obviously only if it provides a good experience to users. Right now, it seems that that is hard to do within the framework Debian provides.

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-owncloud-maintainers/2016-March/002899.html

The situation is rather sad and frustrating as users who decided to trust the Debian developers and took their packages over ownCloud's provided packages are now stuck on a version which can't trivially be upgraded to either our upstream version or anything else. We would love to find a solution for them - as I've said many times, our main concern is the end users, rather than politics, rules or anything else.

Thanks for caring about this,
Jos

> At first glance, this does not seem to prevent the package from staying
> in Debian. Maybe this just means that the package needs a new
> maintainer, who is willing to handle the tough interaction with upstream
> and dealing with the technical issues (note that I am not applying for
> the job).
> 
> You are certainly in a better position than me to ascertain whether the
> package can stay in Debian or not, but I think that it would be useful
> if you could give a little more background on the issues that you
> encountered. And, if you think it makes sense to orphan the package,
> that would help prospective new maintainers in making the decision to
> adopt the package or not.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 

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Message #35 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: David Prévot <david@tilapin.org>

To: Jos Poortvliet <jos@owncloud.com>, 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Pkg-owncloud-maintainers] Bug#816376: Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 08:37:35 -0400

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Hi,

Le 08/03/2016 03:03, Jos Poortvliet a écrit :

> The situation is rather sad and frustrating

OK.

> as users who decided to trust the Debian developers and took their packages over ownCloud's provided packages are now stuck on a version which can't trivially be upgraded to either our upstream version or anything else.

The thing is, we were working on a proper upgrade path, but upstream
decided without even looking at it that it was “bad” (to put it mildly).
Because of upstream reaction, we have removed our work in progress, and
now the PR crap (as in words not backed by anything) follows:

> We would love to find a solution for them

Regards

David

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Message #40 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jos Poortvliet <jospoortvliet@gmail.com>

To: David Prévot <david@tilapin.org>

Cc: 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Pkg-owncloud-maintainers] Bug#816376: Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2016 13:48:36 +0100

On dinsdag 8 maart 2016 08:37:35 CET David Prévot wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Le 08/03/2016 03:03, Jos Poortvliet a écrit :
> > The situation is rather sad and frustrating
> 
> OK.
> 
> > as users who decided to trust the Debian developers and took their
> > packages over ownCloud's provided packages are now stuck on a version
> > which can't trivially be upgraded to either our upstream version or
> > anything else.
> The thing is, we were working on a proper upgrade path, but upstream
> decided without even looking at it that it was “bad” (to put it mildly).
> Because of upstream reaction, we have removed our work in progress, and
> 
> now the PR crap (as in words not backed by anything) follows:
> > We would love to find a solution for them

I know that that is how you choose to look at it - and I feel there is no 
value to discuss that.

> Regards
> 
> David


-- 
Disclaimer:
Everything I do and say is based on my view of the world today. I am not 
responsible for changes in the world, nor my view on it. Everything I say is 
meant in a positive and friendly way, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
find me on blog.jospoortvliet.com

Message #45 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sébastien Villemot <sebastien@debian.org>

To: David Prévot <david@tilapin.org>, 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2016 15:49:46 +0100

Le lundi 07 mars 2016 à 22:32 -0400, David Prévot a écrit :
> Le 07/03/2016 12:43, Sébastien Villemot a écrit :

> Reading the (recent) threads on both the maintainer and upstream lists
> should help anyone to make their mind about it (I’ll give a few
> pointers). Seeing how Debian is described in upstream staff blog posts
> and issue tracker goes further down (I don’t wish to publish some direct
> links from the BTS, but they’re not hard to find).

[...]

> > And, if you think it makes sense to orphan the package,
> > that would help prospective new maintainers in making the decision to
> > adopt the package or not.
> 
> I’m happy to give anyone write (and admin) access to our current
> infrastructure. Feel free to open an RFA or O wnpp bug on my behalf if
> you think it might help.

Thanks for providing this information. I realize that the situation is
indeed quite difficult. I won't open a wnpp bug by myself, since I
understand that you don't think it's a reasonable solution.

> But please, be aware that the enormous owncloud
> package is only the tip of the iceberg: beyond the ~70 packages (some
> were already removed via #816769) listed on the [DDPO], I was
> maintaining a few more dozens on the PHP PEAR (and composer) Maintainers
> team as well as some JavaScript packages.

Do you plan to continue maintaining those extra PHP packages?

I'm asking because I plan to move to a manual installation of ownCloud
using upstream provided tarball (I won't use the upstream provided .deb,
because if this .deb is not good for inclusion in Debian, then it can't
be good for installation on my system). Do you think such setup will be
viable (especially with respect to the various dependencies) on a sid
system?

Cheers,

-- 
 .''`.    Sébastien Villemot
: :' :    Debian Developer
`. `'     http://sebastien.villemot.name
  `-      GPG Key: 4096R/381A7594

Message #50 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: David Prévot <david@tilapin.org>

To: Sébastien Villemot <sebastien@debian.org>, 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 11:22:50 -0400

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

Hi,

Le 08/03/2016 10:49, Sébastien Villemot a écrit :
> Le lundi 07 mars 2016 à 22:32 -0400, David Prévot a écrit :

>> But please, be aware that the enormous owncloud
>> package is only the tip of the iceberg: beyond the ~70 packages (some
>> were already removed via #816769) listed on the [DDPO], I was
>> maintaining a few more dozens on the PHP PEAR (and composer) Maintainers
>> team as well as some JavaScript packages.
> 
> Do you plan to continue maintaining those extra PHP packages?

Not if they were only used by owncloud (and I’d rather let people who
are still using the other packages left take care of their maintenance
anyway), unless they have a user-base on their own. Have a look at the
already filed “Useless in Debian” RC-bugs in the ownCloud (and PEAR)
DDPO to get an idea of the clean-up work in progress.

> I'm asking because I plan to move to a manual installation of ownCloud
> using upstream provided tarball […]. Do you think such setup will be
> viable (especially with respect to the various dependencies) on a sid
> system?

All dependencies are bundled in the upstream tarball anyway, you won’t
need to use system-wide dependencies.

Regards

David

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Message #55 received at 816376@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Diederik de Haas <didi.debian@cknow.org>

To: Sébastien Villemot <sebastien@debian.org>, 816376@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [Pkg-owncloud-maintainers] Bug#816376: Unfit upstream

Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:30:51 +0100

On dinsdag 8 maart 2016 15:49:46 CET Sébastien Villemot wrote:
> I plan to move to a manual installation of ownCloud
> using upstream provided tarball ...
> Do you think such setup will be viable (especially with respect to the
> various dependencies) on a sid system?

Whatever you do, DO run it in a container so it is isolated from the rest of 
your system. It will also prevent security issues which will come up with all 
their bundled 'stuff' to infect your host system. It will also make it easy to 
make snapshots, which you will want to make before performing one of the many 
upgrades you'll be forced to make, because they have a tendency to not work.

From  [owncloud-user] Upgrade 8.2.2 > 9.0.0 failed:

On dinsdag 8 maart 2016 23:57:43 CET Jos Poortvliet wrote:
> Yeah, annoying nobody caught it in testing - we clearly need to get more 
> people to test with a copy of their 'real' instance or something else which 
> gives a real workout to the code.

Message #60 received at 816376-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Debian FTP Masters <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>

To: 698343-done@bugs.debian.org,778688-done@bugs.debian.org,781969-done@bugs.debian.org,789726-done@bugs.debian.org,799561-done@bugs.debian.org,811601-done@bugs.debian.org,816078-done@bugs.debian.org,816376-done@bugs.debian.org,821540-done@bugs.debian.org,821826-done@bugs.debian.org,

Cc: owncloud@packages.debian.org, owncloud@packages.qa.debian.org

Subject: Bug#822681: Removed package(s) from unstable

Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 18:24:19 +0000

Version: 7.0.13~dfsg-1+rm

Dear submitter,

as the package owncloud has just been removed from the Debian archive
unstable we hereby close the associated bug reports.  We are sorry
that we couldn't deal with your issue properly.

For details on the removal, please see https://bugs.debian.org/822681

The version of this package that was in Debian prior to this removal
can still be found using http://snapshot.debian.org/.

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

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Scott Kitterman (the ftpmaster behind the curtain)

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