Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Elimar Riesebieter]

Hi all,

I am pleased to announce the availability of neomutt [0] packages
for
Debian. Hints for installation you'll find at [1].

I've packaged neomutt for Debian. A Debian ITP [2] is filed. The
binaries are build in a sid environment. The sources are fetched
from [3]. The neomutt branch is used. I'll update packages as
needed. Please test the packages and let me know of any further
glitches you find. If you want, you can open an issue on [3]. The
Debian Bug Tracking System is not involved as the package isn't
uploaded yet, but will be soon.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation

Elimar

[0] http://www.neomutt.org/
[1] http://www.lxtec.de/debarchiv
[2] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=825821
[3] https://github.com/neomutt/neomutt

--
  The path to source is always uphill!
  -unknown-


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Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Tue, May 31, 2016, at 09:49, Antonio Radici wrote:
> Additionally I'm not sure why debian-devel@ was added to this bug.

All ITP bugs are CC'd to debian-devel.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique de Moraes Holschuh 

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Antonio Radici]

On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 09:11:57PM +0200, Evgeni Golov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> > > On Mon, 2016-05-30 at 13:00 +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > > > * Package name: neomutt
> 
> Please don't. We don't need another mutt fork in Debian.
> 
> > > Did you talk to the current mutt maintainers about this?
> > > 
> > > The changelog for the mutt 1.6.1-1 upload to experimental includes:
> [ lots of patches taken from neomutt ]
> 
> The current plan is to replace Debian's mutt-patched patchset with neomutt. 
> [1]
> Maybe even s/mutt/neomutt/ at some point.

As mutt maintainer I second every word that Evgeni has already said, we are
already working with the neomutt maintainer and there is activity, I don't
believe there we are adding much with another mutt fork/additional package.

Additionally I'm not sure why debian-devel@ was added to this bug.

Cheers
Antonio

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Elimar Riesebieter]

* Evgeni Golov  [2016-05-30 21:11 +0200]:

> Hi,
> 
> > > On Mon, 2016-05-30 at 13:00 +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > > > * Package name: neomutt
> 
> Please don't. We don't need another mutt fork in Debian.

Its not a fork. It's just an additional packege like in real life:
mutt and neomutt

Elimar
-- 
  The path to source is always uphill!
-unknown-


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Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Evgeni Golov]

Hi,

> > On Mon, 2016-05-30 at 13:00 +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > > * Package name: neomutt

Please don't. We don't need another mutt fork in Debian.

> > Did you talk to the current mutt maintainers about this?
> > 
> > The changelog for the mutt 1.6.1-1 upload to experimental includes:
[ lots of patches taken from neomutt ]

The current plan is to replace Debian's mutt-patched patchset with neomutt. [1]
Maybe even s/mutt/neomutt/ at some point.

Regards
Evgeni, pkg-mutt

[1] https://github.com/neomutt/neomutt/issues/23

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Elimar Riesebieter]

* Faidon Liambotis  [2016-05-30 20:56 +0300]:

> On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 06:42:21PM +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > I've contacted Antonio Radici, Christoph Berg, "Matteo F. Vescovi" and 
> > Faidon Liambotis via PM a while ago.
> 
> I'll respond here, unfortunately without not much context, as that was a
> PM and I wouldn't want to forward without permission.

All is said in this thread. Nothing mysterious ;-)

> So, first of, a bit of a background for the ITP:
> 
> - The mutt maintainers have been engaging with the neomutt upstream
>   already. I, in fact, joined the mutt maintainer group precisely for
>   this purpose. See https://github.com/neomutt/neomutt/issues/23 and
>   others.

Well, I've noticed that you prepared mutt-1.6.1 which resides in
experimental. I suppose you had to rework the neomutt patches so
that they apply? The neomutt part is foreseen as a patch bomb to
mutt-patched which is IMHO a bad idea and will increase the gap to
mutt a lot. And this is the point where a neomutt package should
jump in ;-)

> - Debian is already shipping neomutt partially already; mutt 1.6.1-1
>   already replaces some of our home-grown patches with neomutt's.

See above. You will always maintain patches and not an upstream
source.

> - Debian has *not* been shipping a vanilla mutt for years. Debian has
>   been shipping mutt, mutt-patched and mutt-kz, the former two from
>   src:mutt and the latter from src:mutt-kz. All of them, including the
>   binary package called "mutt" are heavily patched, to a large extent
>   with patches that neomutt ships (ifdef, compressed folders,
>   trash/purge) but a lot of others as well.

The patches Debian provides for the mutt package (not mutt-patched!)
carry mutt to a more modern mutt package and should just remain!

> - The neomutt upstream (Cc'ed) has been incredibly responsive and
>   receptive to requests, both in general and to Debian's needs
>   specifically. Besides us, he's been bringing together many other
>   downstreams (distros and BSDs).

Richard did a famous work and released a neomutt-distro patch
package, where beside others all Debian specific patches are
included and made applicable. A big thank you for him ;-)

> - Considering the above, consensus between the mutt maintainers so far
>   (and AIUI) has been that the mutt source package should switch
>   upstreams and start tracking neomutt. This would basically mean having
>   *one* source and *one* binary package for mutt in Debian (not counting
>   transitional packages).

You will have a mutt including a patch bomb.

> - This has been waiting to some extent on the new neomutt release which
>   includes compressed folders and NNTP, released just today.
> 
> As such, I think this ITP is superfluous, at least for now. Even if it
> is not, pkg-mutt should own this ITP, not Elimar alone -- as we are
> already the de facto downstreams of neomutt in Debian.

I intend to package neomutt which is an intrinsically package which
has a cooperative upstream. If we have a separated neomutt package
it should be easy to maintain and one doesn't have to fight with
fuzzes and offsets. It can't be the intention of Debian to patch a
GPL'd upstream to a totally over patched monster.

I would be happy about every co-maintainer as I am thinking about a
git repo at alioth maintained by the "neomutt-package-maintainers",
yay.

> We could certainly revisit the decision to ship two source packages in
> Debian, src:mutt and src:neomutt (the eventual deprecation of
> mutt-patched and src:mutt-kz is widely agreed at this point, I think).
> I still haven't heard a convincing response of what would happen to the
> "mutt" binary package, though. As I explained above, we're not shipping
> a vanilla mutt and haven't been doing so for many years now. Switching
> back to the vanilla mutt would be a regression at this point and break
> user expectations on upgrades. Keeping the status quo, on the other
> hand, would mean just a huge waste of effort for maintaining and
> forward-porting patches that neomutt upstream is already doing a better
> job at.

From my point of view the mutt package should remain as it is.
There will be much users who don't want to use mutt-patched or
neomutt. The sidebar, notmuch and nntp features for instance aren't
that popular for legacy, let say conservative, users. There will be
always a chance to choose between a mutt (with some incorporated
patches) and a neomutt package. And with a neomutt package in Debian
we will honour the work of its upstream!
> 
> I also haven't heard a convincing response on what would happen
> with all of the patches shipped in src:mutt's debian/patches that
> are not in neomutt yet; effectively forking off the two packages
> would suck for either future maintenance or for our users'
> upgrades, both of which I find unacceptable options.

Well, the Debian specific patches could be merged into the neomutt
package and maybe pulled in to the neomutt git hub. 

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Faidon Liambotis]

On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 06:42:21PM +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> I've contacted Antonio Radici, Christoph Berg, "Matteo F. Vescovi" and 
> Faidon Liambotis via PM a while ago.

I'll respond here, unfortunately without not much context, as that was a
PM and I wouldn't want to forward without permission.

So, first of, a bit of a background for the ITP:

- The mutt maintainers have been engaging with the neomutt upstream
  already. I, in fact, joined the mutt maintainer group precisely for
  this purpose. See https://github.com/neomutt/neomutt/issues/23 and
  others.

- Debian is already shipping neomutt partially already; mutt 1.6.1-1
  already replaces some of our home-grown patches with neomutt's.

- Debian has *not* been shipping a vanilla mutt for years. Debian has
  been shipping mutt, mutt-patched and mutt-kz, the former two from
  src:mutt and the latter from src:mutt-kz. All of them, including the
  binary package called "mutt" are heavily patched, to a large extent
  with patches that neomutt ships (ifdef, compressed folders,
  trash/purge) but a lot of others as well.

- The neomutt upstream (Cc'ed) has been incredibly responsive and
  receptive to requests, both in general and to Debian's needs
  specifically. Besides us, he's been bringing together many other
  downstreams (distros and BSDs).

- Considering the above, consensus between the mutt maintainers so far
  (and AIUI) has been that the mutt source package should switch
  upstreams and start tracking neomutt. This would basically mean having
  *one* source and *one* binary package for mutt in Debian (not counting
  transitional packages).

- This has been waiting to some extent on the new neomutt release which
  includes compressed folders and NNTP, released just today.
 
As such, I think this ITP is superfluous, at least for now. Even if it
is not, pkg-mutt should own this ITP, not Elimar alone -- as we are
already the de facto downstreams of neomutt in Debian.

We could certainly revisit the decision to ship two source packages in
Debian, src:mutt and src:neomutt (the eventual deprecation of
mutt-patched and src:mutt-kz is widely agreed at this point, I think).

I still haven't heard a convincing response of what would happen to the
"mutt" binary package, though. As I explained above, we're not shipping
a vanilla mutt and haven't been doing so for many years now. Switching
back to the vanilla mutt would be a regression at this point and break
user expectations on upgrades. Keeping the status quo, on the other
hand, would mean just a huge waste of effort for maintaining and
forward-porting patches that neomutt upstream is already doing a better
job at.

I also haven't heard a convincing response on what would happen with all
of the patches shipped in src:mutt's debian/patches that are not in
neomutt yet; effectively forking off the two packages would suck for
either future maintenance or for our users' upgrades, both of which I
find unacceptable options.

What do others think?

Regards,
Faidon

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Elimar Riesebieter]

* Adam D. Barratt  [2016-05-30 17:02 +0100]:

> On Mon, 2016-05-30 at 13:00 +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > * Package name: neomutt
> >   Version : 20160502
> >   Upstream Author : Richard Russon 
> > * URL : https://www.neomutt.org/
> > * License : GPL-2
> >   Programming Lang: C
> >   Description : text-based mailreader which gathers all the patches 
> > against
> >Mutt.
> >.
> >NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent supporting MIME, 
> > GPG,
> >PGP and threading.
> 
> Did you talk to the current mutt maintainers about this?

I've contacted Antonio Radici, Christoph Berg, "Matteo F. Vescovi" and 
Faidon Liambotis via PM a while ago.

Elimar
-- 
  The path to source is always uphill!
-unknown-


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Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Adam D. Barratt]

[re-adding -devel to the CC]

On Mon, 2016-05-30 at 17:02 +0100, Adam D. Barratt wrote:
> On Mon, 2016-05-30 at 13:00 +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> > * Package name: neomutt
> >   Version : 20160502
> >   Upstream Author : Richard Russon 
> > * URL : https://www.neomutt.org/
> > * License : GPL-2
> >   Programming Lang: C
> >   Description : text-based mailreader which gathers all the patches 
> > against
> >Mutt.
> >.
> >NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent supporting MIME, 
> > GPG,
> >PGP and threading.
> 
> Did you talk to the current mutt maintainers about this?
> 
> The changelog for the mutt 1.6.1-1 upload to experimental includes:
> 
>* Replace ifdef.patch with neomutt's
>* Replace the three trash patches with neomutt's
>  - features/imap_fast_trash.patch
>  - features/purge-message.patch
>  - features/trash-folder.patch
>* Replace our sidebar patches with neomutt's.
>  This replaces all 4 of our sidebar patches (and more!). Unfortunately,
>  needed a tiny fix over neomutt's sidebar because of our opposite
>  ordering vis-a-vis 11-ifdef.
>* Remove the sidebar.muttrc sample, new patch has proper docs
>* Update NEWS with the new (NeoMutt's) sidebar changes
>* Replace NNTP patch with neomutt's
>* Replace sensible-browser patch with neomutt's
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Adam

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Víctor M . Jáquez L .]

On 05/30/16 at 05:53pm, Alberto Garcia wrote:
> (I forgot to Cc debian-devel in my previous e-mail)
> 
> > > >NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent
> > > >supporting MIME, GPG, PGP and threading.
> > > >.
> > > >NeoMutt was created when Richard Russon (FlatCap) took all
> > > >the old Mutt patches, sorted through them, fixed them up and
> > > >documented them.
> > > 
> > > Apart from the standard 'mutt' package, there's at least two
> > > other packages in Debian with additional patches: 'mutt-kz' and
> > > 'mutt-patched'. From the description of this NeoMutt package it
> > > looks like it would be a superset of both of them.
> > > 
> > > Is that the case? If so, would you see neomutt replacing mutt-kz
> > > and mutt-patched at some point?
> > 
> > I would see that neomutt is a good successor for mutt-patched. As
> > far as I understood Richard correct, neomutt includes the notmuch
> > feature from mutt-kz and superseded mutt-kz more or less. There will
> > be a git branch at neomutt where all Debian specific patches will
> > be incoperated and therefor both mutt and neomutt packages will be
> > much easier to maintain. Bugs introduced from neomutt's additional
> > features can be handled directly, because we don't have to maintain
> > a patch. We have to maintain a feature.
> 
> Ok, thanks. I don't know the opinion of the mutt-kz and mutt-patched
> maintainers but if this one can be the successor of both I guess it
> can make sense to have them replaced by neomutt at some point.

I agree. If neomutt is packaged, mutt-patched and mutt-kz packages should be
deprecated.

vmjl

> 
> I put them in Cc in case they want to say something before neomutt is
> packaged.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Berto
> 

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Adam D. Barratt]

On Mon, 2016-05-30 at 13:00 +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> * Package name: neomutt
>   Version : 20160502
>   Upstream Author : Richard Russon 
> * URL : https://www.neomutt.org/
> * License : GPL-2
>   Programming Lang: C
>   Description : text-based mailreader which gathers all the patches 
> against
>Mutt.
>.
>NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent supporting MIME, GPG,
>PGP and threading.

Did you talk to the current mutt maintainers about this?

The changelog for the mutt 1.6.1-1 upload to experimental includes:

   * Replace ifdef.patch with neomutt's
   * Replace the three trash patches with neomutt's
 - features/imap_fast_trash.patch
 - features/purge-message.patch
 - features/trash-folder.patch
   * Replace our sidebar patches with neomutt's.
 This replaces all 4 of our sidebar patches (and more!). Unfortunately,
 needed a tiny fix over neomutt's sidebar because of our opposite
 ordering vis-a-vis 11-ifdef.
   * Remove the sidebar.muttrc sample, new patch has proper docs
   * Update NEWS with the new (NeoMutt's) sidebar changes
   * Replace NNTP patch with neomutt's
   * Replace sensible-browser patch with neomutt's

Regards,

Adam

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Alberto Garcia]

(I forgot to Cc debian-devel in my previous e-mail)

> > >NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent
> > >supporting MIME, GPG, PGP and threading.
> > >.
> > >NeoMutt was created when Richard Russon (FlatCap) took all
> > >the old Mutt patches, sorted through them, fixed them up and
> > >documented them.
> > 
> > Apart from the standard 'mutt' package, there's at least two
> > other packages in Debian with additional patches: 'mutt-kz' and
> > 'mutt-patched'. From the description of this NeoMutt package it
> > looks like it would be a superset of both of them.
> > 
> > Is that the case? If so, would you see neomutt replacing mutt-kz
> > and mutt-patched at some point?
> 
> I would see that neomutt is a good successor for mutt-patched. As
> far as I understood Richard correct, neomutt includes the notmuch
> feature from mutt-kz and superseded mutt-kz more or less. There will
> be a git branch at neomutt where all Debian specific patches will
> be incoperated and therefor both mutt and neomutt packages will be
> much easier to maintain. Bugs introduced from neomutt's additional
> features can be handled directly, because we don't have to maintain
> a patch. We have to maintain a feature.

Ok, thanks. I don't know the opinion of the mutt-kz and mutt-patched
maintainers but if this one can be the successor of both I guess it
can make sense to have them replaced by neomutt at some point.

I put them in Cc in case they want to say something before neomutt is
packaged.

Regards,

Berto

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Elimar Riesebieter]

* Alberto Garcia  [2016-05-30 15:14 +0200]:

> On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 01:00:20PM +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:
> 
> >NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent supporting
> >MIME, GPG, PGP and threading.
> >.
> >NeoMutt was created when Richard Russon (FlatCap) took all
> >the old Mutt patches, sorted through them, fixed them up and
> >documented them.
> 
> Apart from the standard 'mutt' package, there's at least two
> other packages in Debian with additional patches: 'mutt-kz' and
> 'mutt-patched'. From the description of this NeoMutt package it looks
> like it would be a superset of both of them.
> 
> Is that the case? If so, would you see neomutt replacing mutt-kz and
> mutt-patched at some point?

I would see that neomutt is a good successor for mutt-patched. As
far as I understood Richard correct, neomutt includes the notmuch
feature from mutt-kz and superseded mutt-kz more or less. There will
be a git branch at neomutt where all Debian specific patches will be
incoperated and therefor both mutt and neomutt packages will be much
easier to maintain. Bugs introduced from neomutt's additional
features can be handled directly, because we don't have to maintain
a patch. We have to maintain a feature.

Elimar
-- 
  We all know Linux is great... it does infinite loops in 5 seconds.
-Linus Torvalds


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Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Alberto Garcia]

On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 01:00:20PM +0200, Elimar Riesebieter wrote:

>NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent supporting
>MIME, GPG, PGP and threading.
>.
>NeoMutt was created when Richard Russon (FlatCap) took all
>the old Mutt patches, sorted through them, fixed them up and
>documented them.

Apart from the standard 'mutt' package, there's at least two
other packages in Debian with additional patches: 'mutt-kz' and
'mutt-patched'. From the description of this NeoMutt package it looks
like it would be a superset of both of them.

Is that the case? If so, would you see neomutt replacing mutt-kz and
mutt-patched at some point?

Berto

Bug#825821: ITP: neomutt -- NeoMutt is a place to gather all the patches against Mutt.

[Elimar Riesebieter]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Elimar Riesebieter 

* Package name: neomutt
  Version : 20160502
  Upstream Author : Richard Russon 
* URL : https://www.neomutt.org/
* License : GPL-2
  Programming Lang: C
  Description : text-based mailreader which gathers all the patches against
   Mutt.
   .
   NeoMutt is a sophisticated text-based Mail User Agent supporting MIME, GPG,
   PGP and threading.
   .
   NeoMutt was created when Richard Russon (FlatCap) took all the old
   Mutt patches, sorted through them, fixed them up and documented
   them.
   .
   It's not a fork of Mutt.  It's a large set of feature patches (big
   and small) that apply to Mutt.
   .
   A list of additional features on top of pristine mutt:
   Compressed FoldersRead from/write to compressed mailboxes
   Conditional Dates Conditional Date Formatting
   Fmemopen  Use fmemopen(3) for speedier temporary files
   Ifdef Conditional config options
   Index Color   Theming of the Index List
   Initials Expando  Expando for Author's Initials
   Keywords  Labels/Tagging for emails
   Limit-Current-Thread  Limit Index View to Current Thread
   Nested If Allow deeply nested conditionals in format strings
   NNTP  Talk to a Usenet news server
   Notmuch   Powerful email search engine
   Progress Bar  Colourful Progress Bar
   Quasi-Delete  Hide emails from view, but don't delete them
   Sensible-Browser  Highlight the folder you *used* to be in
   Sidebar   Panel containing list of Mailboxes
   Skip-Quoted   Skip Quoted Text
   Status Color  Theming of the Status Bar
   TLS-SNI   Negotiate with a Server for a Certificate
   Trash Folder  Move 'deleted' emails to a trash folder


Richard prepares a new Release (20160530?) which will incoperate Debian
specific patches in seperated branch. 20160502 and probably 20160530 are
will apply against mutt-1.6.1.

Thanks
--
   Elimar