Debian's Qt Maintainers Stepping Down Ahead Of Qt 6.0

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Debian's Qt Maintainers Stepping Down Ahead Of Qt 6.0

Ahead of the big Qt 6.0 release expected before the end of the year, Debian's current Qt package maintainers have decided to step down...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Debian-Needs-Qt6-Maintainers

[yoshi314]

perhaps so, but a bit of a bad timing.

[shmerl]

Debian KDE team needs more contributors and less bickering about packaging methodology. Plasma has been stuck and outdated for many months already.

[kpedersen]

I think this is a good example why bloated projects with scope creep are bad. They are too time consuming to maintain. If it was just a GUI library, it should barely take any time to update. This is sloppy stuff.

[CommunityMember]

but a bit of a bad timing.

It is actually good timing, as while the Qt5 -> Qt6 update is more of an evolutionary change than some previous updates, there will be sufficient packaging changes that getting someone new in the door now is the right choice. Building Qt to meet a distro's packaging standards has never been especially easy, and having a new major version release is a good marker to not cross for someone wishing to step back from that line.

[CommunityMember]

Debian KDE team needs more contributors and less bickering about packaging methodology.

I take it that you will be volunteering to take on the Qt6 packaging then?

[shmerl]

I take it that you will be volunteering to take on the Qt6 packaging then?

Don't guess or take, if you need help - you can ask.

[CommunityMember]

Don't guess or take, if you need help - you can ask.

The current maintainers have asked.

[shmerl]

The current maintainers have asked.

I've seen some arguments there which were pretty pointless and wasteful, and when help was offered, it was rejected and the whole thing ended up in some bickering. I'm not sure on all the details, but it looked very counter productive to me.

[zoomblab]

LOL! When packaging a piece of software has become a full time job that not even enthousiasts are willing to do.

I have always wondered what it takes to make a distribution. What is the process behind bringing all the software together. In my mind it seems even unnecessary. The developers should be the ones delivering their software. It is in their own best interest to be the avenue between their work and the end user. Otherwise they are being leveraged by the distributors who in the end take the lion's share of the profits.

Anyway, I love Qt. But this is maybe a sign that the company will have to evaluate.