Hi Andreas,
To avoid confusion, we're talking about three tools here: libzeep, mrc
and mrs.
mrc is a simple resource compiler, is now compatible and bug free,
builds on all architectures and should be kept. I believe it is very
useful, using it I can create downloadable, portable applications that
need additional static data without the need for installer scripts.
libzeep version 5 is the latest incarnation of a library I've been
working on for 12 years now. It has evolved into a toolbox to build web
applications in C++ inspired by the popular Java Spring framework and
Thymeleaf template processor. It also contains a full XML and a JSON
library. Using this library I could e.g. convert a pipeline to process
genomics data into an interactive web application, the python scripts
took up to 4 hours for each run, now you can do the same analysis in
less than 5 seconds. I have a couple of applications based on libzeep
that I would like to add to Debian, most of them tools used in
crystallography and genomics research. But also a content management system.
And then we have MRS. This is a retrieval system, a web application
capable of indexing and then searching terabytes of text based databanks
on a single machine. Mostly used in the medical and biological world. It
is used e.g. on mini computers that are sent into Africa where internet
access is limited, that way large databanks like EMBL are still
available. But I stopped development in 2012 when I switched jobs. I
continued development of libzeep on which MRS is based but someone else
took over development of MRS. A year ago I did a consultancy job fixing
MRS which basically came down to reverting most of the attempted
'improvements' after I left.
Currently I'm working at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, here I write
both software used in crystallography as well as a genomics analysis
tool. Many of the crystallographic tools are moving into open source
right now. We would have liked to include those in the CCP4
distribution, but unfortunately my code is way too new (C++17) to work
in that environment. Next to that we would like to include our tools in
Debian (DSSP already is, but that application needs an update), but if
that won't work, I will set up a private repository to distribute our
binaries.
I know libzeep is not very popular, that's because I never bothered much
to find an audience. But I can't live without it myself, a lot of my
tools are based on it one way or another. Libzeep is also quite mature
and has been used in many tools in a production environment for many
years now.
Sorry, long story. To make it short.
- Keep mrc, no problem there
- Upgrade libzeep to version 5
- Kick out mrs until it is upgraded to use libzeep 5
regards, -maarten
Op 09-11-2020 om 20:49 schreef Andreas Tille:
Hi Maarten,
On Mon, Nov 09, 2020 at 07:22:30PM +0100, Maarten L. Hekkelman wrote:
I'm sorry, but mrs as it is currently in Debian is not compatible with
libzeep version 5. It needs a major rewrite. Libzeep is a spin off project
of mrs and has evolved a lot since then.
So either libzeep should be kept at version 3 or mrs should be removed. If
mrs and libzeep are kept, I will not be able to release my other tools based
on libzeep in Debian.
You are the Uploader and the only competent person to decide. If I
understood the issue correctly it came up right after mrc was added to
the Build-Depends. Wouldn't it be an option to just de-couple both
again.
Upgrading mrs is of course the best option, but I won't have time to do that
soon.
So please draw a sensible decision. Libzeep was according to popcon[1]
never installed by more than 10 users - currently the vote (active users)
is at zero. Feel free to decided what *you* personally love to see in
Debian (but decreasing a version number is usually not nice).
Kind regards
Andreas.
[1] https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=libzeep
regards, -maarten
Op 09-11-2020 om 16:19 schreef Niko Tyni:
On Mon, Nov 09, 2020 at 09:17:25AM +0200, Juhani Numminen wrote:
Source: mrs
Version: 6.0.5+dfsg-8
Severity: serious
Tags: ftbfs sid
Justification: fails to build from source (but built successfully in the past)
| Checking for libzeep...libzeep is not installed, either install the package
libzeep-dev
| or download libzeep from ftp://ftp.cmbi.ru.nl/pub/software/libzeep
| and run configure again.
| make[1]: *** [debian/rules:15: override_dh_auto_configure] Error 2
Looks to me like libzeep-dev is broken because the build
doesn't pass --enable-shared to ./configure.
Probably the override_dh_auto_configure-arch and
override_dh_auto_configure-indep targets in src:libzeep debian/rules
are not effective because of the earlier override_dh_auto_configure
target. But I didn't actually test any of this.
Hope this helps,
--
Maarten L. Hekkelman
Cataloniëstraat 3
6663NJ Lent
http://www.hekkelman.com/
--
Maarten L. Hekkelman
Cataloniëstraat 3
6663NJ Lent
http://www.hekkelman.com/
