[Pkg-ime-devel] Bug#650062: im-switch: Retiring im-switch for post wheezy

[Osamu Aoki]

Package: im-switch
Version: 1.20
Severity: normal

(I am CCing all maintainers which make some dependency to the im-switch
packages.)

TODO:
Agree and document post wheezy situation for im-switch, so people on
wheezy will not be surprised when upgrading to wheezy+1.

PROPOSAL: In README.Debian, state 
 * im-switch is deprecated and 
 * recommend people to move to im-config.

FACTS:

 * im-switch and im-config provide equivalent services.

 * im-config is simple and works better.
   Move to im-config after wheezy+1 should be the next step 
   (This is merely my opinion)

 * im-switch is complicated and its configuration mechanism is 
   hard to understand and maintain. (I have been making efforts for
   both.)

 * im-switch suffers few technical issues 
  - multi-arch (Ubuntu patch proposed)
  - handling of GTK2/GTK3 mixed system
  - these can not be solved by im-switch only due to complicated hook
    script structure.

 * im-config 0.5 solves all these issues. (Minor glitches, I am willing
   to fix)

 * 2 overlapping Debian releases are enough for transition.

 * Unknown: Impact to Ubuntu which seems to depend on im-switch
  (If anyone is interested on this, please tell us.  I am ignorant on
   this)

 * fcitx, libuim-data, scim, scim-pinyin
   Packages with Recommends: im-config | im-switch
   Safe for im-switch removal and no impact with default installation
   (scim-pinyin does not need to do this since scim pulls this in.  
    But no bad effect.)

 * gcin
   Packages with Recommends: im-switch | im-config
   Safe for im-switch removal and little impact with default installation

 * gtk-im-libthai, gtk3-im-libthai
   Packages with Recommends: im-switch
   Possible to do im-switch removal
   No support by im-config at this moment (Need to discuss)

 * imhangul-common, kinput2-common
   Packages with Depends: im-switch
   I should file wish list bug for Recommends: im-config | im-switch
   I should also offer support to imhangul-common.  That is TODO on me
   with help by imhangul-common folks.
   kinput2-common seems to be a dead weight package now.
   (Debian has no gargage collection mehanism of unused and unmaintained
    packages except for FTBFS.  They can become security risk, though.)

Since this affects many packages, I would like to discuss in public
here and make appropriate preparation in wheezy by documenting next
step.

If you are CCed and have objection to remove this after wheezy+1, please
make your objection clear and present your alternative plan.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Regards,

Osamu

PS:
I did not CC task-chinese-s/t-desktop since it is owned by Debian
Install System Team <debian-boot at lists.debian.org>.  But they recommend
fcitx and im-switch.  Removing im-switch still pull in im-config via
fcitx. 

Osamu

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.1.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash