The new gimp in core (6)

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 30 June 2007, Todd Zullinger wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> Like many who run Epson printers simply because the output color
>> quality is worth it, I find I am stuck in a catch 22.  I cannot
>> update my gimp install with your new packages.
>>
>> Why?
>>
>> The new gimp packaging is apparently hard coded in its dependencies
>> to absolutely depend on gimp-print-4.2.7-23 and its plugin of the
>> same version number.
>>
>> I installed, using checkinstall, gutenprint-5.1.0 which includes
>> this renamed plugin, back in February as it fixed many long standing
>> bugs such as the bottom of the page color fades, and now allows
>> flawless borderless printing too.  I am not about to screw up my
>> printing ability by allowing a working very well installation to be
>> over-written with broken code by false dependencies such as this.
>>
>> gimp-print has essentially been frozen in time at version 4.2.7 for
>> at least 2 years, maybe longer, and any support is totally up to the
>> individual distro, so I fail to see any logic or reasoning behind
>> the redhat/fedora reticence in adopting gutenprint in its place.  It
>> simply doesn't grok here.
>>
>> Short of downloading the new gimp and installing it --nodeps
>> --force, all by hand, which will work for me I'm sure, or building
>> it from the tarball which I've also been known to do when fedora
>> ignores known problems for months at a time, how do I convince TPTB
>> that gimp-print is a deadend that should be deprecated and
>> gutenprint used to replace it?
>
>There is a flag in the source rpm to control whether the package is
>built with gimp-print or gutenprint.  That might be the simpler way
>that building it all manually.  Or maybe not. :)
>
>It's surely not that the packagers aren't aware of both options, so
>there are likely reasons why the package now requires
>gimp-print-plugin.  They may not be reasons you agree with though.  If
>you feel the dependency is in error, the way to bring that to the
>packagers attention is to file a bug in your friend the bugzilla.
>That should at least help answer the question of why the dep is there
>and perhaps you can persuade the packager that it should not be.
>
>I think some of the problem arises from the fact that in FC6,
>gutenprint was in Extras and not in Core.  That means that the core
>package gimp can't require gutenprint.  There is some discussion of
>this in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/243593.  It looks as if the
>changes made for the F7 gimp package have been applied to the FC6
>package as well.  Perhaps they shouldn't be.  You may be able to point
>this out in that bug and see if the gimp maintainer will reconsider
>that change.

Thanks for the bz link Todd, I've added my comments. 

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
There's no future in time travel.