[indiana-discuss] disappearance of SUNWgnu-libiconv and other issues with 111a

[Matt Ingenthron]

Hi Shawn,

Thanks for the help here.  re-adding the alias because this one concerns 
me a bit and I hope someone else has an idea of what's happened.  More 
inline...

Shawn Walker wrote:
> Matt Ingenthron wrote:
>> Shawn Walker <swalker at opensolaris.org> wrote:
>>> SUNWgnu-libiconv was a temporary package before it was properly 
>>> integrated, so it is now empty:
>>>
>>> http://pkg.opensolaris.org/dev/manifest/0/SUNWgnu-libiconv%400.5.11%2C5.11-0.111%3A20090418T191123Z 
>>>
>>>
>>> It is empty because we currently don't have a good way to deal with 
>>> package obsoletion or removal.
>>>
>>
>>
>> If it was properly integrated, shouldn't the search have found it in 
>> it's new package?  What was it 'properly integrated' into?
>
> I can't answer those questions as I'm not the one who did the work.
>
> What I can tell you is that it is expected that SUNWgnu-libiconv is 
> currently empty, and it is not a bug:
>
> http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=6462

Hmm.  Danek does seem to say that there, but this one is a bit odd. 

When it was delivered originally, it was with the man pages, etc.  They 
didn't seem to indicate that it was a private interface.   In fact, I 
find on http://wikis.sun.com/display/g11n/Programs+Projects that there 
is an item to "deliver GNU libiconv" to OpenSolaris... though it looks 
like they've been doing some other work too.

The reason I raised this one is that it broke some software I'd built on 
OpenSolaris... i.e. no forward compatibility.  I know the contract is 
different versus Solaris, but this seems like odd breakage.

>
>> I always thought things like package name went through ARC before 
>> initial putback.  It seems like going to an empty package with no 
>> replacement and search finding it only in the old versions is a problem.
>
> The OpenSolaris 200x distribution has not been through "ARC" yet so 
> that does not apply.

Uhhh...  The various ARC processes have been adapted to the 
consolidations that feed into OpenSolaris and are used prodigiously when 
looking at the integration of things into into various consolidations.  
Trust me... I've seen the SFWNV side of this.  ipkg may be able to 
blissfully eschew ARC in it's current lifecycle so you may not have seen 
it, but I doubt it'll stay that way forever.

Either that or all of these pages need to be removed:
http://opensolaris.org/os/community/arc/

:)


>
> As I said before, the empty packages are only there because a way to 
> obsolete packages does not exist yet, and this is currently expected 
> (though annoying) behaviour.

I hope there's not a larger issue there.  I'll go bug the i18n people.  
In my particular case, lack of GNU libiconv means that the perl GD 
module won't build.  That, in turn, means some Open Source I've been 
happily using now needs me to go resolve the dependencies for it. 

It's a big step backwards in OpenSolaris being more compatible with Open 
Source out of the box, so I sincerely hope there isn't a removal of GNU 
libiconv in the works for OpenSolaris 2009.06.

- Matt