On Wed, 2017-02-08 at 10:58 +0100, Joost van Baal-Ilić wrote: > Hi, > > On Wed, Feb 08, 2017 at 09:47:08AM +0000, Ghislain Vaillant wrote: > > On Wed, 2017-02-08 at 10:17 +0100, Daniel Stender wrote: > > > On 08.02.2017 09:13, Rebecca N. Palmer wrote: > > > > I have patches for #848764 and #831540; I haven't yet found the cause of > > > > #831541, but as it only affects big-endian systems, partial removal is > > > > an > > > > option. > > > > > > > > However, one of these bugs is a point where upstream plan to make an > > > > incompatible change (though my fix doesn't), and upstream aren't sure > > > > whether having Theano in a long-release-cycle distribution such as > > > > Debian > > > > is a good idea: https://github.com/Theano/Theano/issues/5494 > > > > On first read, it sounds to me that upstream is failing to understand > > that having theano in the archive does not replace or substitute > > traditional development workflow via pip if users want to. > > And/or maybe upstream feels anybody using an "obsolete" version of theano is > doing something wrong. And/or maybe upstream would feel some kind of > obligation/duty to support users of "obsolete" versions of Debian-shipped > theano on Debian systems, if Debian were to ship with those. See also the > xscreensaver debacle, some months ago. I'm just guessing here, extrapolating > from other upstreams.
xscreensaver is an application, so upstream's anger was justified since users had no other (simple) alternative to using the outdated packaged version. theano is a library, and libraries provided in Debian should be packaged as redepends for other frameworks / applications . That's why you are invited to provide a justification in your ITPs as to why packaging the library for Debian is necessary. Unlike with xscreensaver, users do have an alternative for using the latest theano: fire a virtualenv and use the latest theano there via `pip install`. Same comment for numpy, scipy and the rest of the scientific Python ecosystem. Anyone using for instance jessie + the system numpy for serious development is clearly missing out, and should get to know modern development tools (i.e. venv, pip, anaconda...). > > Our packages are here to support future applications / frameworks, > > which may require an appropriately packaged theano. Considering the > > success of deep-learning these days, this prospect is quite likely. > > > > > > (Note that their suggested alternative of using pip will involve > > > > manually > > > > installing libblas-dev, as pip only knows about Python dependencies.) > > Anyway, it would be good to make clear what Debian expects of upstream, and > how > shipping theano with Debian might even be _beneficial_ for upstream. Indeed, in the form of dynamic CI (with autopkgtest) and testing on a variety of architectures they might not have access to otherwise. Whether they care or not is a different story. I believe the easiness of `apt install` which Daniel brought in is no longer so much of a *strong* argument, now that pip + wheels has become quite mature. That's my personal opinion though. Ghis
