Re: instantbird: modified libpurple

2009-11-24 Thread Michael Stone

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 01:28:41AM +0100, Bernd Eckenfels wrote:

In article <0e753136-d929-11de-9b6a-001cc0cda...@msgid.mathom.us> you wrote:
My inclination is to say that this sort of thing is largely 
unsupportable in a debian release. It's fine for unstable, but 2-3 years 
from now is anyone going to be writing patches for instantbird 0.1.3.1 
and its forked version of libpurple? 


Hu? This is an open source project with a forked code base like any other
project?  Why dont you simply treat it as such?


Because of the history of what happens with projects that get put into 
stable when they are version 0.1.3.1 as well as the history of what 
happens with complex network client applications in general. 


Mike Stone


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[no subject]

2009-11-24 Thread Dusty Wilson



Re: instantbird: modified libpurple

2009-11-24 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article <0e753136-d929-11de-9b6a-001cc0cda...@msgid.mathom.us> you wrote:
> My inclination is to say that this sort of thing is largely 
> unsupportable in a debian release. It's fine for unstable, but 2-3 years 
> from now is anyone going to be writing patches for instantbird 0.1.3.1 
> and its forked version of libpurple? 

Hu? This is an open source project with a forked code base like any other
project?  Why dont you simply treat it as such?

Gruss
Bernd


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Re: instantbird: modified libpurple

2009-11-24 Thread Michael Stone

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 07:18:29PM +0100, Gabriele Giacone wrote:

it is not possible to build instantbird with system libpurple.
I forward you the instantbird developer explanation and Mike Hommey
point of view.

What do you think about? Can a package like this be accepted?
If you want to take a look at my package, [2]


My inclination is to say that this sort of thing is largely 
unsupportable in a debian release. It's fine for unstable, but 2-3 years 
from now is anyone going to be writing patches for instantbird 0.1.3.1 
and its forked version of libpurple? 


Mike Stone


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instantbird: modified libpurple

2009-11-24 Thread Gabriele Giacone
Hello,
I've already written to secur...@debian.org a week ago and nobody
answered me, maybe here I will be luckier.
I'm trying to package instantbird [1], an instant messaging client based
on Mozilla xulrunner and libpurple.
Regarding xulrunner, upstream is using 1.9.2b1, Debian 1.9.1.5 and this
should not be a big problem.
Regarding libpurple, upstream uses a modified version and at the moment
it is not possible to build instantbird with system libpurple.
I forward you the instantbird developer explanation and Mike Hommey
point of view.

What do you think about? Can a package like this be accepted?
If you want to take a look at my package, [2]

Thanks
Gabriele Giacone

[1] http://www.instantbird.com
[2] http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/i/instantbird

 Original Message 
Subject: Re: instantbird packaging
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:13:57 +0100
From: Mike Hommey 
To: Gabriele Giacone 

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 05:05:02PM +0100, Gabriele Giacone wrote:
> I've already proposed it to the developer and here the answer:
> 
> "Using a system libpurple is not likely to work. Instantbird uses a
> modified libpurple. We have rewritten the way translations,
> preferences and error messages are handled (to unify with what Mozilla
> does). The way protocol plugins are loaded is also different, all
> plugins are loaded as XPCOM binary components, so that a libpurple
> protocol plugin can be in a mozilla-style addon.
> If your real concern is about the maintenance costs of duplicating all
> the libpurple files, it may be possible to build Instantbird's
> libpurple so that it is able to load both XPCOM style purple plugins,
> and regular gmodule style libpurple plugins located in the system. I
> think this is doable with a reasonable amount of work (start by adding
> DEFINES+= PURPLE_PLUGINS in purple/libpurple/Makefile.in and see what
> you need to fix).
> Protocol plugins is probably where most libpurple security issues are
> anyway.
> Unforking completely libpurple is IMHO more work than it is worth."

On top of not being able to cope with standard libpurple plugins, that
will be a burden for security, too.

I think you should check with the security team, to see what they have
to say about it ? (I haven't checked if libpurple has a big history of
security updates)

Cheers,

Mike
.

.



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