Another questionable dependency chain -- libreoffice-writer installs log4j-chainsaw

[Richard Hughes]

If I understand the dep-chain correctly:

libreoffice-writer -> libreoffice-core -> jre ->
java-1.7.0-openjdk-headless -> apache-commons-logging -> log4j

This means I get an ugly icon called "Chainsaw" in the GNOME Software
center that when I try to remove also removes all the LibreOffice
packages.

If I actually launch the program I get a java-themed GUI full of low
level filter weirdness. Could we either clean up the depchain or split
off the actual log4j-chainsaw application off as a new subpackage?

The alternative is that I blacklist the log4j-chainsaw application in
the fedora-appstream metadata generation, which is a shame if someone
is actually wanting to search for a log viewer for java.

Thanks,

Richard.

[Aleksandar Kurtakov]

----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Richard Hughes" <hughsient(a)gmail.com&gt;
>  To: "Development discussions related to Fedora"
> <devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 12:32:57 PM
>  Subject: Another questionable dependency chain -- libreoffice-writer
> installs	log4j-chainsaw
>  
>  If I understand the dep-chain correctly:
>  
>  libreoffice-writer -> libreoffice-core -> jre ->
>  java-1.7.0-openjdk-headless -> apache-commons-logging -> log4j 
Clarification
the actual chain is 

....
java-headless->rhino->jline->jansi->hawtjni->xbean->avalon-framework->log4j

And avalon is dead project (closed at Apache) since 2004 and being actually inactive
before Fedora even existed. It's time to prune such things out of the distro.

Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse team

>  
>  This means I get an ugly icon called "Chainsaw" in the GNOME Software
>  center that when I try to remove also removes all the LibreOffice
>  packages.
>  
>  If I actually launch the program I get a java-themed GUI full of low
>  level filter weirdness. Could we either clean up the depchain or split
>  off the actual log4j-chainsaw application off as a new subpackage?
>  
>  The alternative is that I blacklist the log4j-chainsaw application in
>  the fedora-appstream metadata generation, which is a shame if someone
>  is actually wanting to search for a log viewer for java.
>  
>  Thanks,
>  
>  Richard.
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>  Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct

[Richard Hughes]

On 30 January 2014 11:17, Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Clarification the actual chain is
>  ....
> java-headless->rhino->jline->jansi->hawtjni->xbean->avalon-framework->log4j
Ahh, thanks for working that one out. Java isn't my area of expertise.

>  It's time to prune such things out of the distro. 
So what can we prune for F21? Does xbean actually require
avalon-framework -- or does hawtjni actually need xbean? etc..

Richard

[Aleksandar Kurtakov]

----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Richard Hughes" <hughsient(a)gmail.com&gt;
>  To: "Development discussions related to Fedora"
> <devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 1:28:12 PM
>  Subject: Re: Another questionable dependency chain -- libreoffice-writer	installs
> log4j-chainsaw
>  
>  On 30 January 2014 11:17, Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Clarification the actual chain is
>  > ....
>  >
> java-headless->rhino->jline->jansi->hawtjni->xbean->avalon-framework->log4j
>  
>  Ahh, thanks for working that one out. Java isn't my area of expertise.
>  
>  > It's time to prune such things out of the distro.
>  
>  So what can we prune for F21? Does xbean actually require
>  avalon-framework -- or does hawtjni actually need xbean? etc.. 
I'm still unsure - I haven't dealed with these but I would like to see avalon-*
out.


Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse team

>  
>  Richard
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>  Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct

[Christopher Meng]

Required By

apache-commons-logging
avalon-logkit
fop
hadoop-common

[Aleksandar Kurtakov]

----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Richard Hughes" <hughsient(a)gmail.com&gt;
>  To: "Development discussions related to Fedora"
> <devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 1:28:12 PM
>  Subject: Re: Another questionable dependency chain -- libreoffice-writer	installs
> log4j-chainsaw
>  
>  On 30 January 2014 11:17, Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Clarification the actual chain is
>  > ....
>  >
> java-headless->rhino->jline->jansi->hawtjni->xbean->avalon-framework->log4j
>  
>  Ahh, thanks for working that one out. Java isn't my area of expertise.
>  
>  > It's time to prune such things out of the distro.
>  
>  So what can we prune for F21? Does xbean actually require
>  avalon-framework -- or does hawtjni actually need xbean? etc.. 
Second thought - Fedora 21 makes OpenJDK 1.8 default which should have nashorn as a
replacement for rhino and we can get rid of rhino from the openjdk deps.

Alexander Kurtakov
Red Hat Eclipse team

>  
>  Richard
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>  Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct

[Stanislav Ochotnicky]

Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; writes:

>  ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Richard Hughes" <hughsient(a)gmail.com&gt;
> > To: "Development discussions related to Fedora"
> <devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org&gt;
> > Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 1:28:12 PM
> > Subject: Re: Another questionable dependency chain -- libreoffice-writer	installs
> log4j-chainsaw
> >
> > On 30 January 2014 11:17, Aleksandar Kurtakov <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > > Clarification the actual chain is
> > > ....
> > >
> java-headless->rhino->jline->jansi->hawtjni->xbean->avalon-framework->log4j
> >
> > Ahh, thanks for working that one out. Java isn't my area of expertise.
> >
> > > It's time to prune such things out of the distro.
> >
> > So what can we prune for F21? Does xbean actually require
> > avalon-framework -- or does hawtjni actually need xbean? etc..
>
>  Second thought - Fedora 21 makes OpenJDK 1.8 default which should have nashorn as a
> replacement for rhino and we can get rid of rhino from the openjdk deps. 
Mikolaj has been testing JDK 8 these past few weeks and the results
don't seem encouraging for us. There are *a ton* of compilation
failures, mostly in javadocs.

I am not saying this is not doable, but it will involve *a lot* of
work in any case. One blasphemous suggestion was to just get rid of
javadoc generation :-)

--
Stanislav Ochotnicky <sochotnicky(a)redhat.com&gt;
Software Engineer - Developer Experience

PGP: 7B087241
Red Hat Inc.                               http://cz.redhat.com

[Mikolaj Izdebski]

On 01/30/2014 12:28 PM, Richard Hughes wrote:
>  On 30 January 2014 11:17, Aleksandar Kurtakov
> <akurtako(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > Clarification the actual chain is
> > ....
> java-headless->rhino->jline->jansi->hawtjni->xbean->avalon-framework->log4j
>  
>  Ahh, thanks for working that one out. Java isn't my area of expertise.
>  
> > It's time to prune such things out of the distro.
>  
>  So what can we prune for F21? Does xbean actually require
>  avalon-framework -- or does hawtjni actually need xbean? etc.. 
As owner or comaintainer of several packages listed above I can say that
dependencies after jline are correct, at least as correct as they can
be.  The problem is inability of RPM or YUM to handle more complex
dependency scenarios.

1) Although RPM 4.x has some (very) limited support for optional
dependencies (aka "soft dependencies"), YUM doesn't understand them at
all.  Some of dependencies mentioned by Aleksandar are in fact optional,
but I'm unable to mark them as such because of limitations imposed by YUM.

2) RPM doesn't differentiate between dependency scopes.  Some
dependencies may be required only in some contexts, for example only for
testing, or only when using that package to compile other packages.  In
the latter case one would normally put these dependencies in -devel
packages, but these are forbidden by packaging guidelines for Java.

3) RPM doesn't support dependency exclusions.  I'm not able to express
"require xbean, but without avalon" in terms of RPM requires.

I don't think that the above dependency situation can be improved
without removing legitimate Requires or patching upstream code.

-- 
Mikolaj Izdebski
IRC: mizdebsk

[Richard Hughes]

On 30 January 2014 12:48, Mikolaj Izdebski <mizdebsk(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
>  Some
>  dependencies may be required only in some contexts, for example only for
>  testing, or only when using that package to compile other packages. 
I think not-installed-by-default subpackages are the solution here.

Richard

[Mikolaj Izdebski]

On 01/30/2014 01:56 PM, Richard Hughes wrote:
>  On 30 January 2014 12:48, Mikolaj Izdebski
> <mizdebsk(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote:
> > Some
> > dependencies may be required only in some contexts, for example only for
> > testing, or only when using that package to compile other packages.
>  
>  I think not-installed-by-default subpackages are the solution here. 
That would certainly help from theoretical point of view, but that's not
really maintainable.  Adding hundreds of empty packages just to improve
dependencies isn't the right way to go, IMHO.  This should be fixed in
the infrastructure.

-- 
Mikolaj Izdebski
IRC: mizdebsk

[Kevin Kofler]

Mikolaj Izdebski wrote:
>  That would certainly help from theoretical point of view, but
> that's not
>  really maintainable.  Adding hundreds of empty packages just to improve
>  dependencies isn't the right way to go, IMHO.  This should be fixed in
>  the infrastructure. 
IMHO, adding hundreds of empty -devel subpackages IS the way to go, if the 
only difference between -devel and main really is the dependencies. Stuff 
needed only for development belongs into -devel packages, period.

        Kevin Kofler

[Kevin Kofler]

Mikolaj Izdebski wrote:
>  2) RPM doesn't differentiate between dependency scopes.  Some
>  dependencies may be required only in some contexts, for example only for
>  testing, or only when using that package to compile other packages.  In
>  the latter case one would normally put these dependencies in -devel
>  packages, but these are forbidden by packaging guidelines for Java. 
WTF???

Those guidelines must be fixed NOW!

-devel stuff MUST be in -devel packages and not pollute normal packages. ALL 
those Java libraries should have a -devel subpackage, or if it is really not 
needed, a Provides: foo-devel.

        Kevin Kofler

[Rex Dieter]

Mikolaj Izdebski wrote:

>  2) RPM doesn't differentiate between dependency scopes.  Some
>  dependencies may be required only in some contexts, for example only for
>  testing, or only when using that package to compile other packages.  In
>  the latter case one would normally put these dependencies in -devel
>  packages, but these are forbidden by packaging guidelines for Java. 
Not exactly forbidden, but there is an interesting tidbit at
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Java#-devel_packages

"-devel packages don't really make sense for Java packages. Header files do 
not exist for Java packages."

-devel packages can exist for many reasons besides simply providing headers, 
imho.

-- Rex