debhelper currently implements cross-compiling with meson by invoking
meson's Debian-specific debcrossgen script. That script works in basic
scenarios (for example a simple C/C++ library), but is considered to be
deprecated, and its maintainer does not want to apply patches to it for
missing cross-tools that are needed by more elaborate packages.

Now that Debian 13 development has started, it seems a good time to be
switching from debcrossgen to `meson env2mfile`, which *does* accept
(upstream) patches for missing cross-tools.

There is an implementation awaiting review in
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debhelper/-/merge_requests/127, although
there might be some improvements/simplifications that can be made now
that we have Meson 1.7.0 (with `meson env2mfile --for-build`) in stable
and oldstable-backports.

    smcv

Simon McVittie:

Hi,

I am fine with migrating to env2mfile. However, when looking at the MR,
I get the feeling it is not ready for review or need my input at this point:

  * The MR is still in draft and does not have any obvious open questions
    for me.

  * The MR has 6 unresolved discussions of which one of them is Helmut
    stating "This patch should get an ack from Jussi Pakkane (meson
    maintainer) before being merged.", which does not appear to have
    happened (neither in that discussion nor by an approval from Jussi
    or Helmut dismissing his own "requirement").

    - FWIW, I would very much also want Jussi to say "Yes, this is
      exactly how debhelper should be calling meson. If this does not
      work, then it will definitely be a meson bug" before merging, so I
      agree with that particular unresolved discussion.

These points are very strong indicators to me that the MR is not ready
to be reviewed by me and much less merged. With that, I am tagging it
moreinfo.


Feel free to remove the moreinfo tag once the situation changes (or tag
me on the MR).

Best regards,
Niels