[BPO] libreoffice 7.1.7 for focal

Bug #1950467 reported by Rico Tzschichholz
14
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
libreoffice (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
Focal
Fix Released
Medium
Rico Tzschichholz

Bug Description

[Impact]

 * LibreOffice 7.1.7 is in its seventh (and last) bugfix release of the 7.1 line:
     https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/7.1#7.1.7_release

 * This source packages matches the proposed SRU for hirsute handled at
     https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/1948933
   and its backport is currently provided by the LibreOffice Still PPA at
     https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/ubuntu/libreoffice-still/+packages

 * LibreOffice 6.4.7 (EOL since November 30, 2020) is currently released in focal.

 * Given the nature of the project, the complexity of the codebase and the high level of quality assurance upstream, it is preferable to SRU a minor release rather than cherry-pick selected bug fixes.

[Scope]

 * Backport of https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/1:7.1.7-0ubuntu0.21.04.1

 * Backport target is Focal/20.04 LTS only to provide an official build of a more recent upstream version of LibreOffice

[Testing]

 * Upstream testing. Bugs fixed upstream typically include unit/regression tests, and the release itself is extensively exercised (both in an automated manner and manually).

  * A recent set of upstream's automated jenkins testing can be found here:
    https://ci.libreoffice.org/job/gerrit_71/1460/

  * More information about the upstream QA testing can be found here:
    * Automated tests
      https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/Testing/Automated_Tests
    * Automated UI tests
      https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/UITests
    * Regression tests
      https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/Testing/Regression_Tests
    * Feature tests
      https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/Testing/Feature_Tests

 * Launchpad testing. The libreoffice packages include autopkgtests that were run and verified as passing.
    * [amd64] https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-focal-libreoffice-libreoffice-still/focal/amd64/libr/libreoffice/20211110_055401_85a70@/log.gz
    * [arm64] https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-focal-libreoffice-libreoffice-still/focal/arm64/libr/libreoffice/20211110_013227_b21ba@/log.gz
    * [armhf] https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-focal-libreoffice-libreoffice-still/focal/armhf/libr/libreoffice/20211110_015816_7e469@/log.gz
    * [ppc64el] https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-focal-libreoffice-libreoffice-still/focal/ppc64el/libr/libreoffice/20211110_002248_216a6@/log.gz
    * [s390x] https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-focal-libreoffice-libreoffice-still/focal/s390x/libr/libreoffice/20211109_232224_7b3ab@/log.gz

 * General smoke testing of all the applications in the office suite were carried out by going through the manual testplan as documented by: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Process/Merges/TestPlans/libreoffice

[Regression Potential]

 * A minor release with a total of 27 bug fixes always carries the potential for introducing regressions, even though it is a bugfix-only release, meaning that no new features were added, and no existing features were removed.

 * A combination of autopkgtests and careful smoke testing as described above should provide reasonable confidence that no regressions sneaked in.

Changed in libreoffice (Ubuntu Focal):
status: New → In Progress
importance: Undecided → Medium
assignee: nobody → Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz)
Changed in libreoffice (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz) wrote :

This is meant in addition to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/focal/+source/libreoffice/+bug/1929999 not as a replacement.

Revision history for this message
Dan Streetman (ddstreet) wrote :

Hello!

> This is meant in addition to
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/focal/+source/libreoffice/+bug/1929999
> not as a replacement.

just to reinforce this, the backport definitely shouldn't be relied on as a replacement for proper SRU work, so that bug should definitely continue to be discussed and hopefully the SRU completed.

> A recent set of upstream's automated jenkins testing can be found here:
...
> Launchpad testing. The libreoffice packages include autopkgtests that were run and verified as passing.
...
> General smoke testing of all the applications in the office suite were carried out by going through the manual testplan

Very good, I think both the upstream tests as well as the autopkgtests for the backported package are important. And for a package like this that's very end-user-focused it's very good to see manual testing as well.

I have only 2 concerns with the backport:

1) looking at the debdiff, it seems the backport did require some changes. I'd like to see the specifics of the changes required for the backport at least mentioned in the changelog. Additionally, I have some specific comments on the backport changes:

You've made quite a few changes in d/control, to adjust the minimum version of dpkg-dev as well as removing some deps and adding others.

For the reduced dpkg-dev min version, where is the corresponding change in code? Why does the newer libreoffice depend on a newer dpkg-dev, but appears to also work fine using the older version? Does the libreoffice in hirsute simply include a dpkg-dev min version that it doesn't actually need?

For the removed/added deps, which also have a change in d/rules to compile without (or with) them; I don't think this is necessarily a problem, assuming it really needs to be done for the backport, but it definitely should be listed in the changelog, since removing deps presumably will remove some functionality in the backported version (right?)

2) the specific version of the backported package should include a suffix with 'bpo':
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports#Preparing_the_Backported_Package

This is a new requirement as we just recreated the backports process, so if you were using the 'backportpackage' tool it probably got the version wrong.

I rejected the current upload, but if you can reupload with the two concerns above addressed, I don't see any other problems with it.

Thanks!

Revision history for this message
Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz) wrote :

Hello,

Thank you for your review.

I have updated the patch and minimized the usage of internal libraries as far as possible.
See the packaging git branch [1] for more details.

We provide libreoffice_*.orig-tarballs.tar.xz to fallback on library versions used upstream if the system environment is not sufficient.

The new requirement to include a "~bpo" string seems a bit unfortunate given the established versioning of the package [2] [3]. Could you make a recommendation here while this is not a plain rebuild of the hirsute package?

[1] https://git.launchpad.net/~libreoffice/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/log/?h=wip/focal-7.1
[2] https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice
[3] https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+packages

Revision history for this message
Dan Streetman (ddstreet) wrote :

> I have updated the patch

thanks! and thanks for adding details to the changelog entry as well to clarify the backport changes, and to update the vcs links.

> The new requirement to include a "~bpo" string seems a bit unfortunate

The current rules would require the version to change as:

1:7.1.7-0ubuntu0.21.04.1
to
1:7.1.7-0ubuntu0.21.04.1~bpo20.04.1

I do think that generally makes sense, even though including both the '21.04.1' and '20.04.1' releases might be at first confusing. Note this does follow the backport version convention used by Debian:
https://backports.debian.org/Contribute/#index4h3

The only possible future problem with that versioning I think is if the full 7.1.7 version was, at some point, *fully* SRU'ed back into focal. At that point, the SRU version would usually be a version like 1:7.1.7-0ubuntu0.20.04.1, which would actually be a lower version number than the version in backports. However, I don't think you are planning to do that (right?), and it's also generally not allowed to do using the SRU process.

Other than the version number, the backport looks good to me; if you can upload it with the proper version number, I'm happy to approve it.

Revision history for this message
Rico Tzschichholz (ricotz) wrote :

@ddstreet Thank you, I have uploaded the updated package with the required versioning :-)

Dan Streetman (ddstreet)
Changed in libreoffice (Ubuntu Focal):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Dan Streetman (ddstreet) wrote :

Released to focal-backports, thanks!

Changed in libreoffice (Ubuntu Focal):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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