[MIR] gnome-web-photo

[Loïc Minier]

Binary package hint: gnome-web-photo

Hi

      Availability

available on all arches

      Rationale:

netbook-launcher, the UNR full screen application launcher, allows user to maintain web favourites / bookmarks in the launcher; they are added by drag-n-drop on an applet (go-home-applet). This package would allow generating thumbnails for web favourites added in this way. There is a short overview and discussion of the features (or missing features) in bug #425464.

      Security:
            CVE entries
    Secunia history

None; this is using xulrunner though and is expected to be impacted by the same issues as xulrunner/firefox but the issues will be fixed in xulrunner as usual.

          * Any binaries running as root or suid/sgid ? Any daemons ?

None

          * Network activity: does it open any port ? Does it handle incoming network data ?
          * Does it directly (not through a library) process binary (video, audio, etc) or structured (PDF, etc) data ?

Absolutely; it processes web pages to output a screenshot. This is using xulrunner so it's probably as vulnerable/secure as firefox in Ubuntu.

          * Any source code review performed ? (The approver will do a quick and shallow check.)

Just a quick check done, not a real security review

      Quality assurance:
          * In what situations does the package not work out of the box without configuration ?

None

          * Does the package ask any debconf questions higher than priority 'medium' ?

No debconf-age

            Debian bugs: (mention any that are particularly relevant, and any showstoppers)
            Maintenance in Debian is frenetic/vigorous/calm/dead ?
while there is an interested Debian person working on the package, it's apparently not in Debian

            Upstream is frenetic/vigorous/calm/dead ?

calm, development seems to be mostly complete; last release in June 2009 so decently recent.

            Upstream bug tracker: (mention any particularly relevant or critical)

*cough* none found; I think it's relatively low volume. ChangeLog mentions some Novell bugzilla bugs have been resolved. The upstream maintainer, chpe, is a GNOME figure and probably can be easily contacted to escalate issues.

DOAP file says:
  <bug-database rdf:resource="mailto:epiphany-list%40gnome.org" />

          * Hardware: Does this package deal with hardware and if so how exotic is it ?

No

          * Is there a test suite in the upstream source or packaging ? Is it enabled to run in the build ?

No

      UI standards:
          * User-visible strings are internationalized using standard gettext system ?

Yes

          * Package with translatable strings builds a PO template during package build ?

Yes (CDBS gnome.mk)

          * End-user applications ship a desktop file ?

No

      Standards compliance:
            FHS, Debian Policy compliance ?

Yes

          * Packaging system (debhelper/cdbs/dbs) ? Patch system ? Any packaging oddities ?

CDBS + simple-patchsys; nothing fancy

      Dependencies:
          * Are these all in main ?
Yes

      Maintenance:
          * How much maintenance is this package likely to need ? (Simple packages may largely take care of themselves; complex packages will need dedicated developers paying attention to them.)

Very little; perhaps triaging some xulrunner crashes from time to time

          * Who is responsible for monitoring the quality of this package and fixing its bugs ? Are they Ubuntu or Debian developers ?

Couple of universe contributors and now the UNR Developers team; the Ubuntu UNR team might also assist.

          * Who is the package bug contact in Ubuntu? (Needs one if its a nontrivial package which does not fully maintain itself through Debian)

None; UNR developers are sub-ed to bugmail

     Background information:
          * The general purpose and context of the package should be clear from the package's debian/control file. If it isn't then please explain.

See top description: taking screenshots of bookmarked web sites for UNR.

          * What do upstream call this software ? Has it had different names in the past ?

No, just gnome-web-photo

      Internationalization:
          * Are graphical applications translatable? Do they support gettext?

Yes

There's a warning during build with ignoring the return code of nice which I think is harmless.

I'm unhappy with the wrapper script, see bug #427817, asac might help us get this resolved.

Bug #425464 mentions other imperfections but IMHO nothing serious.

[Loïc Minier (lool)]

Given the connection with xulrunner and the fact that he already had a look anyway, I'm assigning this MIR to asac :-)

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 12:13:12PM -0000, Loïc Minier wrote:
> Given the connection with xulrunner and the fact that he already had a
> look anyway, I'm assigning this MIR to asac :-)

gnome-web-photo currently uses internal libxul symbols which is a bad
idea to move to main (even worse than libmozjs.so).

I started to work on trying a few approaches. will hopefully get a
clear understanding if its possible to use only properly exported
symbols by mid of week.

 - Alexander

[Loïc Minier (lool)]

Deferring to karmic+1

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i didnt really come to a real fix for this .... gecko just doesnt offer a good API for what gnome-web-photo does ... guess that should move to webkit.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

I tried looking at this too but it isn't really going to work (see my comment in bug 427817)). In addition to that, this project is totally dead upstream now

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

This might be possible again, I just filed Bug #724701 to update gnome-web-photo to 0.10 where it's been ported to webkit.