Re: pkg/54478 (x11/py-gtk2 build error)

["David H. Gutteridge" <david%gutteridge.ca@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR pkg/54478; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "David H. Gutteridge" <david%gutteridge.ca@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: pkg/54478 (x11/py-gtk2 build error)
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2019 21:47:32 -0400

 Hello,
 
 Which package(s) are you specifically trying to build that depend(s) on
 py-gtk2? I ask because this may influence how satisfactory a resolution
 we can achieve.
 
 py-gtk2 hasn't been maintained upstream for years, and, as of the
 latest pango updates, has bit-rotted to the point where it expects
 specific functionality that pango no longer provides. I imagine in the
 broader FOSS ecosystem there's little interest in making fixes to it,
 given its Python dependency will be EOL in a few months. (I've seen
 very little public discussion of this issue so far, other than one bug
 report from last week that notes this breakage and the principal reason
 for it.)
 
 The initial error you encountered is because pango has now deemed some
 functionality should be private to itself that was previously publicly
 accessible. They've moved some C header content to separate "private"
 files, which are not part of the installation target for the software.
 This error, and another subsequent one like it, can be resolved by
 making that header content available to this package (albeit not
 without some risk or complexity).
 
 There's a further error that's more problematic: py-gtk2 tests for a
 particular function that has been wholly removed from pango, and for
 another variant of it that still exists, but has been deprecated by
 simply returning NULL to callers. Here py-gtk2 will gracefully return
 that it's unable to create the object it intends to, but this also
 means dependent software that require it may not work correctly.
 
 I've hacked together changes that get py-gtk2 to build again, and I've
 tested with devel/diffuse, and it runs without issue. (I can see it
 doesn't use the particular functionality that was wholly removed.)
 Whether this will work for your use case(s), I can't say.
 
 I'm willing to patch this to work for now, but longer-term, the pkgsrc
 community may decide we simply need to remove packages like this. (My
 test fixes aren't adequate for pkgsrc as-is, either, they'd need to be
 reworked. I was just checking to see if I could get it to build again.
 This is further complicated by the fact py-gtk2 auto-generates a lot of
 its C code.)
 
 Dave