Package: libnet-irc-perl
Version: 0.75-8
Severity: important

This package is officially dead upstream; it's description on CPAN now
reads 'DEAD SINCE 2004' and the patch for #303400 that I forwarded in
2005 was recently marked as 'rejected' because of this. From 0.79 README:

   This module is officially DEPRECATED. It has been abandoned in
   favor of more modern approaches, including Bot::BasicBot and
   POE::Component::IRC. This release only serves to warn current and
   new users about the status of this distribution.

This suggests removal, except for the reverse dependencies: barnowl and
blootbot depend on libnet-irc-perl and munin-node and hobbit-plugins
suggest it.

Possibly this bug should be cloned as requests for migrating to
the above alternatives.

Hi,

I think we should try to remove this module before the wheezy release.
If there are no objections, I'll file bug for the reverse dependencies
in the next days.

Ansgar

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=pkg-perl-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org;tag=libnet-irc-perl-removal

Packages depending on libnet-irc-perl:
#640206 [important] - barnowl
#640207 [important] - blootbot

Packages suggesting libnet-irc-perl:
#640208 [minor]     - munin-node
#640209 [minor]     - hobbit-plugins

The first two bugs are also marked as blockers for this bug.

Regards,
Ansgar

Hi,

Ansgar Burchardt wrote in http://bugs.debian.org/640209:

You mean "unmaintained upstream"...

Meh! It doesn't have any bugs in Debian (except #608583 of course)
and works smoothly without any issue here for ages.

So I can't really follow why it should be removed. There's quite a lot
of established and well working software in Debian which is
deprecated, unmaintained upstream or even vanished from the upstream
websites.

I surely won't add POE bloat to the hobbit-plugins IRC bot.

In http://bugs.debian.org/608583 there's also Bot::BasicBot mentioned,
so I'll have a look into libbot-basicbot-perl, but I can neither
promise that the migration will be successful nor that I'll manage to
dig into this anytime soon.

Since the Hobbit IRC bot included in hobbit-plugins is only useful on
Hobbit/Xymon servers and not enabled by default, its (hard)
dependencies are just Suggests in the package.

Nevertheless, that IRC bot is a quite important und intensely used
component of all Hoobit/Xymon servers I know, so I raised the severity
to important and added a blocker like you did for the other bugs of
that severity.

		Regards, Axel

Hi,

Axel Beckert wrote:

JFTR:

Bot::BasicBot also uses POE::Component::IRC, but on #debian-perl, two
further IRC modules popped up:

AnyEvent::IRC (packaged in libanyevent-irc-perl) and Net::Async::IRC
(doesn't seem to be in Debian yet).

Thanks to sECuRE and mst for these hints!

		Regards, Axel

-=| Ansgar Burchardt, 03.09.2011 13:43:21 +0200 |=-

Net::IRC dependency is removed upstream in version 1.8, released
October 2011.

Since barnowl is the only remaining package with a hard dependency on
libnet-irc-perl, and since there is a fix upstream, I am raising the
severity of #608583 to make libnet-irc-perl get out of jessie. This
will remove barnowl too, unless the package is upgraded to a newer
upstream release.

On a side note, adding Homepage to barnowl's control file would be
nice. The upstream project is at http://barnowl.mit.edu/ . Ditto for
debian/watch and debian/copyright.

Control: severity 640206 serious

I think #640206 should then be transitively RC as well, raising
severity.

Kind regards
Philipp Kern

OK.  I had updated the barnowl packaging, but upstream asked me to hold
off and update to a new release.  I'll cycle back with them and upload
something fixed in a coupled of days.

(cc'ing the bug in question)

No strong objection, just a note. The fact that upstream rejects
bug reports bothers me, that's the main reason why I filed the bug.
The upstream code has issues but we don't have a way of sharing our fixes.

See also #437474, where the submitter sent patches directly to me because
upstream was unresponsive.

Axel, given that you care and current upstream clearly doesn't, how
about taking over the upstream maintenance?

Hi Niko,

Niko Tyni wrote:
[http://bugs.debian.org/608583 -- No more upstream for Net::IRC]

I already though about that, yes -- and not only once. I also thought
about adding myself as Uploader to the libnet-irc-perl package.

But I think my lack of knowledge about the IRC protocol does not
enable me to maintain it properly as upstream.

And since I already converted the one place where I need a Perl IRC
library, I don't care as much anymore as the frustration about the
whole issue may have suggested.

As I said, I'm sad that we discuss such things now and not before I
was urged to move away to different libraries. But that's past. (Well,
the frustation is still there, but I won't go back and the frustration
hopefully will go away.)

So, I'm not vetoing against a removal of libnet-irc-perl, as I don't
see an alternative, but I'm still unhappy about ditching it.

		Regards, Axel

Hi,

gregor herrmann wrote:

Since there were no other replies yet, I'm now lowering the severity
of #608583 to non-RC.

This does not mean that this is a final or permanent decision -- in
contrary -- it's just leaving the current state of keeping it in Sid,
but not allowing it to Jessie. The actual direction is less important
and can be changed again. (Nevertheless further changes should be
preceeded by at least some discussion -- as was this one.)

		Regards, Axel