Move GConf depends to a seperate binary

[Julien Lavergne]

Currently, gconf on pidgin is only used to retrieve proxy settings from GNOME. It puts an hard depends on gconf, even if pidgin is used on a non-gnome environment. Also, it seems that this feature may be broken (see LP #878032 and https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/13867).

The included debdiff move away the gconf files to a pidgin-gnome binary, so people not using GNOME can remove the gconf depends.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks, I don't think it's worth splitting to another binary. The depends was useful at the time where the schemas registration was done on installation but isn't really needed nowadays with the triggers use

there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get dh_gconf to not add the depends though, some suggestions (sorted of by somewhat order of preference)

- create a new dh_gconf flag to not add gconf to up misc:Depends and get piding to use it

- hack around in debian/rules (e.g move the schemas away before dh_gconf is called and move it back before the deb is packed so the misc depends is not added)

- don't use misc:Depends in control (I think nothing else get added at the moment, but it feels wrong and might be of use for other things later)

- don't install the schemas (it's only used by programs using libgnome, which is deprecated for ages and only to handle custom url like <protocol>://<contact>, in practice very few users are likely to hit those case if ever)

I would be happy to sponsor one of those changes, let me know what you think

[Julien Lavergne (gilir)]

Thanks for the answer. Here is my comments for the different solutions :

- New dh_gconf : it's seem a bit overkill, especially if pidgin is the only one to use it. And I don't know dh enough to make this change in the near future :-)

- hack on debian/rules : probably a good idea, but I don't think I can make it clean with cdbs

- don't use misc:Depends : yes, it feels wrong. If something else use this feature in the future, it will not be obvious to re-enable it in the package (most of packages have misc:Depends).

- Considering it's seems broken, and used for a very limited use cases, I think it's safe to just remove it. I attached the updated debdiff.

[Tim Lunn (darkxst)]

Removing gconf seems the best option to me, the gconf url-handlers won't work on any modern DE/apps. The proxy code pulls settings from gsettings first, so that should be fine also. The other options mentioned would seem a waste of time for something that will rarely be used.

Uploaded (with one minor change). Thanks!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package pidgin - 1:2.10.12-0ubuntu5

---------------
pidgin (1:2.10.12-0ubuntu5) xenial; urgency=medium

  [ Julien Lavergne ]
  * debian/pidgin*.install
   - Don't install gconf schemas to avoid depends on gconf (LP: #1550896).

  [ Tim Lunn ]
  * debian/control
    - Drop build-depend on gconf2 it's not need with the above change

 -- Tim Lunn <email address hidden> Thu, 10 Mar 2016 17:06:47 +1100