[scribus] Conflict with inkscape caused by Scribus PPA (Ubuntu 18.04)

[Mattia Rizzolo]

On Mon, Dec 09, 2019 at 06:07:03PM +0100, Bert Driehuis wrote:
> The problem is that Inkscape does not link to libpoppler73 directly,
> but rather through libpoppler-glib8. So by updating libpoppler-glib8
> through the Scribus PPA, the Inkscape linkage changes to libpoppler85
> indirectly.

Mh, yes it does.

% dpkg -s inkscape|grep poppler
[...] libpoppler-glib8 (>= 0.18.0), libpoppler73 (>= 0.62.0)

> I haven't checked how Scribus links to libpoppler. If it
> doesn't use libpoppler-glib8

It doesn't.

> the problem could be solved by simply
> not including that library in the PPA.

Honestly, I hate putting such libraries in the PPA, and I would have
never done it if scribus didn't bump its requirements (that I understand
thoguh, since poppler just loves breaking its interface, maintaining it
for long as an application is stressful).
I also already stopped rebuilding trunk in bionic due to other bumped
requirements, and it won't get the next release either.
Sure, I could go with targetted libraries, static linking and whatnot,
but I won't.

> If not including the conflicting glue libraries is an option, then
> that is the best way forward.

So, I just uploaded poppler_0.74.0-0ubuntu1.2~ppa1, that only builds
libpoppler85
libpoppler-dev
libpoppler-private-dev
libpoppler-cpp0v5
libpoppler-cpp-dev

(scribus doesn't link against the cpp0 variant, but lists cpp-dev in the
build-deps, so I kept it).

> You could (in the bionic PPA only) add a
> Conflicts: line with specific version numbers to kill off the
> incompatible libraries, but I think most people would be happy if they
> got manual cleanup instructions somehow.

This solution would be the most unfriendly of them all: no apt frontend
allows downgrades by themselves, you need to specifically instruct it.
And removing that thing would also remove inkscape, for example.

> In my experience, Conflicts
> will sooner or later bite the maintainer in a place where it hurts.
> And most PPA users know that PPA's aren't meant to be perfect.

So, if you see people with issues with inkscape or whatever in a
situation like this, please instruct them to downgrade their
libpoppler-glib8 package! ♥


Also, as the maintainer of that PPA, let me apologize for the unexpected
breakage.  🙏

-- 
regards,
                        Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18  4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540      .''`.
More about me:  https://mapreri.org                             : :'  :
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri                  `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia  `-
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