CI talk (Was: re: Manner in which kde-gtk-config development is conducted)

[Ben Cooksley]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2020 at 12:44 PM Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at> wrote:
>
> Ben Cooksley wrote:
> > I'm unhappy with them due to how they handled the complete disaster
> > that was a significant version update to a core system library (libc I
> > think) which they did in a stable, released distribution.
>
> I cannot really speak for that part, but for the following part:
>
> > It was at this point that I had finally had enough of Fedora (having
> > previously had to deal with their internal politics over the packaging
> > of QtWebEngine, which meant we ended up having to use Qt 5.8 rather
> > than the Qt 5.9 which we had initially targeted as the 5.9 packaging
> > was blocked) and dumped them for SUSE, the images that we continue to
> > use today.
>
> the technical issue back then was that QtWebEngine was heavily patched in
> Fedora, in particular, in order to support x86 machines without SSE2. (Yes,
> these exist.) All the patches, including the huge no-sse2 patch, had to be
> ported from release to release by one person that happened to be me.
> (Needless to say, I was strictly opposed to pushing an update removing
> support for some hardware to a stable release, as I hope you can understand.
> Hence, rebasing the no-sse2 patch was a blocker.) As soon as the patch
> rebases were ready, the package update was submitted. These days,
> QtWebEngine is not as heavily patched anymore, and in particular, we no
> longer attempt to support x86 without SSE2, because Fedora has dropped
> support for it distrowide.
>
> In addition, I have since resigned as the primary maintainer of QtWebEngine.
> You will occasionally find me committing some fixes, but I am no longer the
> point of contact nor the one doing most of the work. QtWebEngine in Fedora
> is now maintained by Rex Dieter. And the comaintainer who attempted (and
> failed) to do the QtWebEngine 5.9 upgrade at your request has since left
> Fedora entirely. So the political issue should also be resolved to your
> liking.
>
> I hereby formally apologize for any extra work the delays in getting Qt 5.9
> out (and the possible miscommunications around them – I do not know what the
> former comaintainer may have promised to you without consulting me first)
> may have caused to you. It will never happen the same way again.

Thank you Kevin.

The issues with Qt 5.9 were relatively minor in the scheme of things,
but it is nice to know how things have changed since then none the
less.

>
>         Kevin Kofler
>

Cheers,
Ben