[MIR] gwibber

Link to the MIR bug for python-mako https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mako/+bug/523430

Packaging:
 - Package ships autostart desktop file, which should be dropped:
   + A lot of people don't do microblogging, and generally we do not want to launch applications by default.
   + Gwibber is written in Python, which uses an excessive amount of CPU, and would ruin boot speed.

 - Package has heavy dependencies (python-egenix-mxdatetime and python-egenix-mxtools) which use 1.3 MB .deb size alone (for a Python library which provides some date/time utility functions???); This is excessive bloat, and will make the CDs overflow yet again. At least the documentation/examples should be removed from those two python modules (which account for 2/3 of the package size).

Bugs: Package has ~ 500 bugs ATM, of which many are untriaged and looks serious (lots and lots of crashes). Of course many are wishlist bugs, which is okay and just shows that it is a fairly popular piece of software. But still, this is three times as much as firefox.
I wonder whether it is really mature enough to go into an LTS yet.

How much of a goal is gwibber for lucid? Is it an option to keep it in universe and install on demand, so that it doesn't fall under the LTS support commitment? It looks like no single person could keep up with bug triage, and at least fix all those crashes?

It is set to disabled by default, but it will appear in the list to easily enable it at startup.

Won't affect login time, unless a user enables it explicitly.

Thanks, so the autostart/login part is okay. Still needs input about bug situation and how important a lucid goal this is.

OK, the goal question was just discussed in #u-desktop, and desktop team is committed to maintaining gwibber. So approved from that perspective.

That just leaves the "heavy dependencies" issue. Approved this MIR once they are gone, so that we can put it on the CDs without overflowing.

I am planning to look into splitting out the docs in that package, as we discussed. Just finishing feature work first.

debdiff splitting out the docs for egenix-mx-base is in bug 523969

Dependencies were greatly reduced now, thanks! Approved (with some headache about the long-term support situation, though, but it's a major lucid goal to get it).

promoted