[Freewx-maint] Bug#613431: Packaging wxwidgets2.9

[Olly Betts]

On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 10:23:24PM -0700, Brandon wrote:
> Hi Olly. What are your intentions toward packaging wxwidgets 2.9? Is it
> something you are still interested in? You are still listed as the
> owner of the ITP, but the bug report hasn't had any significant
> activity in the last 18 months.

The main issue remains that 2.9 is a development series - the API and
ABI can both change incompatibly between versions, which means that
each new 2.9.x version would be like 2.6 to 2.8 in terms of work for
Debian (and as I was the main driver for that migration, I have a good
idea of what that's like).

I do realise that 2.9.x is needed by a growing number of applications
(especially as wxwidgets.org suggests you might prefer to use it for new
applications).

I've been talking to upstream about this, and explaining the problems
that the current situation creates for distros (especially those with
binary packages, but the potential for API changes is a problem for
source-based distros too).  They seem sympathetic, and I'm hoping we
can set things on course to actually get a 3.0 release out.

Meanwhile my plan is to get 2.9 packages staged in experimental, which
will allow maintainers to test their existing packages with 2.9, and
also to work on new packages which need 2.9.

Once we have a better idea how hard 2.8 to 2.9 will be, we can make a
more informed plan for what goes in Jessie.  Ideally I'd like to have
just one wx version in Jessie, and that to be 3.0.

Cheers,
    Olly