Sync gnome-desktop3 40.4-1 (main) from Debian experimental (main)

[Jeremy Bícha]

Please sync gnome-desktop3 40.2-2 (main) from Debian experimental (main)

Explanation of the Ubuntu delta and why it can be dropped:
  * Merge with debian, remaining changes:
    - Add 04_compute_average_color.patch: Compute the avergage color in
      gnome-desktop itself, not in unity to fix some races (LP #963140)
    - Add tweak_color_computation.patch, Patch from Gord, no patch header,
      no bug link.
    - debian/control.in: Build-Depend on language-pack-gnome-he for build tests
    - debian/rules:
      + Specify gettext domain for dh_translations.

- The language-pack dependency is not needed since the build tests work fine without it. The build generates the locales it needs.

- I added the translation domain to Debian since we've added similar overrides in Debian in libgweather and glib2.0

- That leaves 2 patches. Both of the patches take an existing function to determine the "average" color of the desktop wallpaper and tweak it so that it looks at the left side of the wallpaper since that's where the Ubuntu Dock is. The patches are old. As far as I can tell, that function isn't actually used by anything in Ubuntu excluding the remnants of Unity. I checked gnome-shell, mutter, and both our default extensions. I checked codesearch.debian.net. The patches are an interesting idea but it's only helpful where a desktop wallpaper is asymmetrical with different colors on the left side.

My opinion is that it's not worth maintaining a Debian diff for an unimportant Unity tweak.

(One side note, the gnome-desktop patched code was copied into unity-greeter and its 2 forks, arctica-greeter and slick-greeter. But it's a code copy so it doesn't matter what we do in gnome-desktop.)

Changelog entries since current impish version 40.2-1ubuntu1:

gnome-desktop3 (40.4-1) experimental; urgency=medium

  [ Jeremy Bicha ]
  * New upstream release
  * debian/rules: Set translation domain for Ubuntu

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * debian/control: Use versioned dh-sequence-gnome instead of duplicating

 -- Jeremy Bicha Sat, 28 Aug 2021 17:13:53 -0400

gnome-desktop3 (40.2-2) experimental; urgency=medium

  * force usage of gnome-pkg-tools (>= 0.22) to ensure gnome:NextVersion gets
    generated properly

 -- Sjoerd Simons Sat, 10 Jul 2021 21:13:45 +0200

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for the suggestion, some questions

> The build generates the locales it needs.

How does that work, to generate a locale it needs the entry /var/lib/locales/supported.d which is part of the langpack to exists no?

> isn't actually used by anything in Ubuntu excluding the remnants of Unity

so it's used by unity still? if so we need to get that fixed before we remove the patch.

It also feels like a change probably better done at the start of a cycle than after feature freeze

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

As regards the Unity patches, and if they are still useful for Unity somehow, how about including those in Debian?

We had a Unity related delta in ibus, and to get into 'sync mode' I upstreamed it to Debian:

https://salsa.debian.org/debian/ibus/-/commit/924290db

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

> How does that work, to generate a locale…

Sorry for being unclear. The locale was needed for a build test only. I believe it was testing LTR and RTL support for the time format (as used in the middle of the top bar in GNOME).

The feature used by Unity is a subtle tweak. If we dropped the patches, Unity would still get the average color used by the desktop wallpaper (since gnome-desktop upstream still includes that function). It just wouldn't be weighted to the average color of the left side of the desktop wallpaper.

Arguably, that tweak could be used in the modern Ubuntu desktop. It just isn't currently and I don't know if it's worth the work to get the tweak working in GNOME.

> how about including those in Debian?

Sometimes, some Debian GNOME members object to Unity/Ubuntu-specific patches being pushed into Debian. Sometimes, we push the patches anyway (because overall, it helps Debian if Ubuntu developers will upload new versions of packages faster).

Off-topic, but there used to be a cool feature that enabled us to easily selectively apply patches on Ubuntu only. Even though I only used it in a few packages, it upset people enough that they got the practice banned in Debian Policy. 😂

https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/upgrading-checklist.html#version-4-5-1

>I upstreamed it to Debian

Thank you! Getting ibus in sync helps a lot!!

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

On 2021-08-31 01:06, Jeremy Bicha wrote:
> Sometimes, some Debian GNOME members object to Unity/Ubuntu-specific
> patches being pushed into Debian.

I know. But we can ask, right?

If we are turned down, and before dropping the patches, I think the folks who keep Unity alive should be consulted.

> (because overall, it helps Debian if Ubuntu developers will upload
> new versions of packages faster).

Indeed.