On Tue, Oct 04, 2016 at 09:21:00PM +0000, Gianfranco Costamagna wrote: > Hi, > (not sure why this bug is still open) > > > >The upgrade of tidy to the newer version breaks what MediaWiki expects > >(see test failures: > ><https://people.wikimedia.org/~legoktm/tidy-failures.log>), and updating > >MediaWiki to be compatible with the newer tidy isn't an option either: > ><https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2015-August/082845.html>. > > >>So is it possible to keep the older version of tidy around? Preferably > >also via the php-tidy library, though I'm not sure exactly how that > >integration would work. > > > I really don't think this is possible. > There can be only one tidy implementation, and we have maintainer choose > the actively maintained one (also Fedora did, and I'm sure other distro too). > > Fix the code with the new library is your best solution. > Or make somebody upload the old tidy with a different library name, and patch > the code to use that one. > (I would oppose such bad way to deal with a library update btw)
There is no technical reason why the two tidy versions couldn't coexist long-term in the archive if someone would ITP the old version back into unstable - the libraries have different so-names so that was already handled, and by using alternatives and/or calling the old binary tiny-old. This would not be desirable, but shouldn't cause any problems. The tidy PHP extension is a different story. php-horde-text-filter is the only rdep of php{,5,7.0}-tidy that is not completely broken (galette is pretty RC-buggy), so making the tidy PHP extension in stretch use the old tidy would also likely be doable.[1] But the solution with minimum impact for everyone else would be to ITP the old tidy version back into unstable with the binary renamed to tidy-old, and patching MediaWiki to not use the PHP extension. Looking at [2], it seems that for buster the problem will be fixed by MediaWiki no longer using tidy? > G. cu Adrian BTW: Why doesn't the mediawiki package have any kind of dependency on tidy or php-tidy? [1] Which tidy version does php-horde-text-filter expect? [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsing/Replacing_Tidy -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed