(Adrian: Added you to CCs per suggestion of Paul.)

Hi Paul,

On 2 January 2024 at 21:00, Paul Gevers wrote:
| Hi Dirk,
| 
| On 02-01-2024 20:42, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
| > | The Release Team considers packages that are out-of-sync between testing
| > | and unstable for more than 30 days as having a Release Critical bug in
| > 
| > I noticed that too over the last few weeks as I tend to keep an eye on my
| > aggregation at https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=e...@debian.org
| 
| Nice. I wish every DD did that.
| 
| > | This bug will trigger auto-removal when appropriate. As with all new
| > | bugs, there will be at least 30 days before the package is auto-removed.
| > 
| > Sure. Though that might be harsh / might affect other packages.
| 
| They will be notified of the autoremoval automatically and can help you 
| fix the situation. If there's work in progress, you can delay the 
| autoremoval by pinging this bug, that resets the timer.
| 
| > We may want to consider exempting i386 as a build arch if that is possible.
| 
| Well, if you really can't support i386 anymore (we expect from DD to 
| support as many architectures as is *reasonably* possible), you should 
| arrange for the removal of the i386 package, including all reverse i386 
| dependencies. It would be good to coordinate this with your reverse 
| dependencies (at least inform them). In the end removal happens by 
| filing appropriate RM bugs against the ftp.debian.org pseudo package.

Ok. I can do that. I just look at 'rdepends' for r-cran-rjava and it is only
five packages. That seems fair.
 
| > | If you believe your package is unable to migrate to testing due to
| > | issues beyond your control, don't hesitate to contact the Release Team.
| > 
| > :wave:
| 
| FTBFS of your own package is what I consider to be in your control (this 
| text is part of the template I use). Either you fix the issue, or you 
| decide to no long support i386 with your package, but you'll need to 
| coordinate with your reverse dependencies. The removal happens by 
| ftp-master once you file the appropriate bugs.
| 
| > This is an R package, and R no longer releases on i386 meaning upstream may
| > not have checked / may not be receptive. See eg [1] for the CRAN state of 
the
| > package. No i386 there.
| > 
| > I am not sure what else to do besides simply saying 'no longer builds on 
i386'.
| 
| Maybe contact i386 porters for help creating a patch? (We have one: 
| Adrian Bunk).

Good idea. Have CC'ed Adrian to see if he wants to jump in.
 
| Having said all that, most of our upstreams don't support (for some 
| value of support) all the architectures that we support. Still we expect 
| from DD to put in *reasonable* effort to support their packages on our 
| architectures. So, the call to drop an architecture from the supported 
| list is yours to make as a maintainer.

It is not easy to strike the right balance, ie for m68k we 'hang on' for a
long time as we had motivated maintainers / porters / developers. Not sure we
had users :)

For i386 we have been patient too. The hardware has been EOL for some time
and most projects have ceased explicit support.  That is a fair sign.

If someone wants to help, I am happy to play along. But if not, I think for a
'somewhat marginal leaf-alike' dependency such as rJava aka r-cran-rjava
removing i386 support is defensible.  We only support approx 1k out 20k CRAN
packages so users are accustomed to having to go elsewhere anyway. I packaged
rJava nearly 20 years ago because it is a 'difficult' package for many users
and our integration helps. I still maintain it for the same reason, even if
Java is also way more marginal within R now. So for i386 the end may be coming.

Cheers, Dirk


| Paul
| x[DELETED ATTACHMENT OpenPGP_signature.asc, application/pgp-signature]

-- 
dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | e...@debian.org

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