Bug 554101 - Review Request: surf - Simple web browser
Summary: Review Request: surf - Simple web browser
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: Package Review
Version: rawhide
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Dominic Hopf
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2010-01-10 13:39 UTC by Simon
Modified: 2016-04-24 11:48 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

Fixed In Version: 0.3-2.fc12
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2016-04-24 11:48:51 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:
dmaphy: fedora-review+


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Comment 1 Dominic Hopf 2010-01-10 15:07:42 UTC
You're requiring webkitgtk-devel for the build. Shouldn't the package itself require webkitgtk then?

Comment 2 Christoph Wickert 2010-01-10 15:25:45 UTC
No, because rpmwill detect this dependencie automatically as it is a shared lib dep on libwebkit-1.0.so.2.11.3. These deps should never be listed explicitly.

Comment 3 Dominic Hopf 2010-01-10 18:29:12 UTC
Thanks very much for pointing this out Christoph. I'm sorry for the confusion.
Here's my formal review:

$ rpmlint surf.spec
0 packages and 1 specfiles checked; 0 errors, 0 warnings.

$ rpmlint surf-0.3-1.fc12.src.rpm
1 packages and 0 specfiles checked; 0 errors, 0 warnings.

$ rpmlint surf-0.3-1.fc12.x86_64.rpm surf-debuginfo-0.3-1.fc12.x86_64.rpm
surf-debuginfo.x86_64: E: debuginfo-without-sources
2 packages and 0 specfiles checked; 1 errors, 0 warnings.

The error is referring to the debuginfo package and can be ignored afaik.


Package Review
==============

Key:
 - = N/A
 x = Check
 ! = Problem
 ? = Not evaluated

=== REQUIRED ITEMS ===
 [x] Package is named according to the Package Naming Guidelines
 [x] Specfile name matches %{name}.spec
 [x] Package seems to meet Packaging Guidelines
 [x] Package successfully compiles and builds into binary RPMs on at least one
     supported architecture.
     Tested on: Fedora 12/x86_64
 [x] Rpmlint output:
     source RPM: empty
     binary RPM: empty
 [x] Package is not relocatable.
 [x] License in specfile matches actual License and meets Licensing Guidelines
     License: MIT
 [x] License file is included in %doc.
 [x] Specfile is legible and written in AE
 [x] Sourcefile in the Package is the same as provided in the mentioned Source
     SHA1SUM of Source: c201a48e0b0e2de573b73e286ca4feda4f6df9a8
 [x] Package compiles successfully
 [x] All build dependencies are listed in BuildRequires
 [-] Specfile handles locales properly
 [-] ldconfig called in %post and %postun if required
 [-] Package owns directorys it creates
 [-] Package requires other packages for directories it uses.
 [x] Package does not list a file more than once in the %files listing
 [x] %files section includes %defattr and permissions are set properly
 [x] %clean section is there and contains rm -rf %{buildroot}
 [x] Macros are consistently used
 [x] Package contains code, or permissable content.
 [-] Large documentation files are in a -doc subpackage
 [x] Program runs properly without files listed in %doc
 [-] Header files are in a -devel package
 [-] Static libraries are in a -static package
 [-] Package requires pkgconfig if .pc files are present
 [-] .so-files are put into a -devel subpackage
 [-] Subpackages include fully versioned dependency for the base package
 [-] Any libtool archives (*.la) are removed
 [x] contains desktop file (%{name}.desktop) if it is a GUI application
 [x] Package does not own files or directories owned by other packages.
 [x] %{buildroot} is removed at beginning of %install
 [-] Filenames are encoded in UTF-8

=== SUGGESTED ITEMS ===
 [x] Package contains latest upstream version
 [x] Package does not include license text files separate from upstream.
 [-] non-English translations for description and summary
 [x] Package builds in mock
     Tested on: F12/x86_64
 [x] Package should compile and build into binary RPMs on all supported architectures.
     tested build with koji
 [x] Program runs
 [-] Scriptlets must be sane, if used.
 [-] pkgconfig (*.pc) files are placed in a -devel package
 [-] require package providing a file instead of the file itself
     no files outside of /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin are required


Obviously, the dependency to dmenu is missing, please add it before requesting
CVS access. Anything else is fine, very good work Simon.
The package is approved.

Comment 4 Simon 2010-01-11 13:48:34 UTC
Thank you Dominic, I will add the missing dmenu dependency before i import this. Thank you for this hint 

New Package CVS Request
=======================
Package Name: surf
Short Description: Simple web browser 
Owners: cassmodiah
Branches: F-12
InitialCC:

Comment 5 Jason Tibbitts 2010-01-13 18:05:37 UTC
CVS done (by process-cvs-requests.py)

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2010-01-16 17:35:09 UTC
surf-0.3-1.fc12 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 12.
http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/surf-0.3-1.fc12

Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2010-01-17 02:54:20 UTC
surf-0.3-1.fc12 has been pushed to the Fedora 12 testing repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
 If you want to test the update, you can install it with 
 su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update surf'.  You can provide feedback for this update here: http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F12/FEDORA-2010-0684

Comment 8 Fedora Update System 2010-01-17 11:48:30 UTC
surf-0.3-2.fc12 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 12.
http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/surf-0.3-2.fc12

Comment 9 Fedora Update System 2010-01-19 19:43:55 UTC
surf-0.3-2.fc12 has been pushed to the Fedora 12 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 10 Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 2010-01-23 23:10:20 UTC
Ah, I caught this by accident, but there's another software called surf:

SURF is a set of programs for generating and displaying the solvent
accessible surface of a molecule.  A representation of a typical
protein molecule can be generated in about a second, allowing near
real-time response to changes in the surface parameters.

http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/extsrcs/surf.tar.Z

Granted, it's obscure and I have only packaged it for internal purposes (so far), but it's still a (potential) conflict.

Comment 11 Simon 2010-01-24 15:44:18 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
> but it's still a (potential) conflict.    

I don't see a conflict!
surf is unique in fedora pkgdb
there is no review request with another software called surf!
first come, first served!

Comment 12 Jason Tibbitts 2010-01-24 15:59:36 UTC
Simon, your statement "first come, first served" explicitly contradicts our existing guidenline and policy on the matter.  Please read the relevant guidelines:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Conflicts#Potential_Conflicting_Files

"We don't just try to avoid conflicts with existing packages within Fedora but also potential conflicts. This is because the first package to enter Fedora is not always the one that should take on the name. There are several scenarios in which this could come into play:"

I urge you to avoid pushing this package until the conflict can be worked out.

Comment 13 Simon 2010-01-24 16:24:44 UTC
(In reply to comment #12)
> I urge you to avoid pushing this package until the conflict can be worked out.    

Too late.

$ yum info surf
Available Packages
Name       : surf
Arch       : x86_64
Version    : 0.3
Release    : 2.fc12
Size       : 16 k
Repo       : updates
Summary    : Simple web browser
URL        : http://surf.suckless.org/
License    : MIT
Description: surf is a simple web browser based on WebKit/GTK+.


http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F12/FEDORA-2010-0785

Comment 14 Jason Tibbitts 2010-01-24 17:25:43 UTC
Then you have some work to do to rectify this problem.

Comment 15 Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 2010-01-24 19:20:54 UTC
Some more information about surf: it was written in 1992 (so it's way older than surf-the-web-browser) and while it is open source, the licence has a non-commercial clause, so it won't end up in Fedora unless the authors relicense it. However, this doesn't stop anyone from packaging it for rpmfusion or some other repository. Also surf is used by VMD, which is a popular and actively developed molecular dynamics software.

Comment 16 Christoph Wickert 2010-01-24 21:31:19 UTC
Although Simons comments sound very uncouth to me, I have to defend him on the merits:

(In reply to comment #12)
> Simon, your statement "first come, first served" explicitly contradicts our
> existing guidenline and policy on the matter.  Please read the relevant
> guidelines:

IMHO Simon has acted IAW the guidelines. Quote:
"In the second case, where there is no known package to conflict with at this time, it is up to the packager to make a decision."

By the time of the review or when pushing the package to updates, nobody was aware of the other program, so it is Simon's decision. Where we go from here now depends on how constructive the suggestions are.

Jason, what do you suggest?
 
Simon, can you talk to upstream and ask him about renaming his package?

Comment 17 Dominic Hopf 2010-01-25 17:28:16 UTC
Christoph is right. From the reviewer point of view I also didn't know there is another package named surf which possibly could conflict with the web browser surf. To avoid any further conflicts I'd suggest to rename  this package and maybe also the binary to "surf-browser".

Comment 18 Simon 2010-01-25 17:45:04 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> Although Simons comments sound very uncouth to me, 
Sorry, this was not intended. Please don't interpret something in my postings.

> Simon, can you talk to upstream and ask him about renaming his package?
I spoke with upstream (of the browser). He knows there is another software called 'surf', but he doesn't want to rename his project. It doesn't matter to me, what's the name of the package is, so I have no problem with a renaming in Fedora, but I can't see a reason for this.

The current situation is that surf is fedora incompatible. Perhaps it will never be fedora compatible, but you say I have to rename it to $(whatever), because a 3rd party repo could package surf. Sorry but this argumentation doesn't look sane to me and I can't find this kind of argumentation in the guidelines. IMHO the fact that this isn't compatible licensed for more than 16 years without amendment would disqualify surf (not the browser) for the pkgname surf in fedora.

surf (the webbrowser) in other OS:
Archlinux: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=30009 -> surf!
BSD: http://www.freshports.org/www/surf/ -> surf!
Debian: http://suckless.debian-maintainers.org/ http://ftp-master.debian.org/new/surf_0.3-1.html -> surf!

Comment 19 Jason Tibbitts 2010-01-25 17:58:25 UTC
Just to make sure this is clear through any language barriers, in the following statement from the guidelines:

"In the second case, where there is no known package to conflict with at this
time, it is up to the packager to make a decision."

the word "known" is a general thing.  It doesn't imply that it's OK if you simply offhand don't know that there are other pieces of software with conflicting names.  When you see a four letter package name with a rather common usage in English, you should at least, you know, spend a minute or two over at Google.  

And simply making up your own rules, like "first come, first served" or your "16 years of incompatible licensing disqualifies it for the name" isn't how it's done.  Build consensus, ask FESCo.  It's supposed to be a community, not you doing whatever you feel like doing.  It may be that you are correct, and since surf can't be included in our distribution that there's no point in working around it.  It may also be that nobody bothered to ask the surf author to relicense his code.

Comment 20 Christoph Wickert 2010-01-25 18:17:04 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)

> The current situation is that surf is fedora incompatible. Perhaps it will
> never be fedora compatible, but you say I have to rename it to $(whatever),
> because a 3rd party repo could package surf. Sorry but this argumentation
> doesn't look sane to me and I can't find this kind of argumentation in the
> guidelines. 

Jason already quoted the important bits from the guidelines:
"We don't just try to avoid conflicts with existing packages within Fedora but
also potential conflicts."
Not only with existing packages in Fedora -> also 3rd party

Comment 21 Christoph Wickert 2010-01-25 18:53:58 UTC
The surf that Dominik mentioned is hard to find. It has no homepage and I doubt that the existence of an unversioned tarball surf.tar.Z one some universities webspace is prove that there actually is a project/program called "surf".

But to make this even more fun, there is http://surf.sourceforge.net/
We really should go for remaning this package.

Comment 22 Simon 2010-01-26 07:05:04 UTC
Imho this is the first valid comment in this discussion!
Good hint Christoph, this surf is alive, FOSS and older than surf (the brwoser)

This surf is packaged in opensuse and mandriva as surf.
I can't find any reason to insist on surf as pkgname!

Package Change Request
======================
Package Name: surf-browser

Comment 23 Simon 2010-01-26 07:33:19 UTC
btw, this surf is listed in archlinux as 
surf-ag
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=27365

Perhaps, if surf (algebraic) comes, it should be renamed, too.. It's a good compromiss and even Dominik can use the whatever-this-surf-is-for as surf on his system. This would make all happy!

Comment 24 Simon 2010-01-26 08:03:56 UTC
wait a minute, today is FESCO meeting. I will ask FESCO!

Comment 25 Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 2010-01-26 13:59:18 UTC
(In reply to comment #21)
> The surf that Dominik mentioned is hard to find. It has no homepage and I doubt
> that the existence of an unversioned tarball surf.tar.Z one some universities
> webspace is prove that there actually is a project/program called "surf".

Well, the original source is no longer available. What I gave you was the mirror (and you can find the original URL in the README).

> But to make this even more fun, there is http://surf.sourceforge.net/
> We really should go for remaning this package.    

This is interesting. Maybe it's related to the one I mentioned. I'll have a look at the sources.

Comment 26 Christoph Wickert 2010-01-26 14:10:44 UTC
FYI, I filed a ticket so we can discuss this in today's FeSCo meeting:
https://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/324

Comment 27 Simon 2010-02-02 20:36:34 UTC
FESCO decided!

Package Change Request
======================
Package Name: surf-browser

Comment 28 Kevin Fenzi 2010-02-03 04:14:08 UTC
Unfortunately, the procedure for name changes is a re-review. ;( 

It should be an easy one since this was just approved.

Comment 29 Dominic Hopf 2011-03-22 22:28:28 UTC
The bug is NEEDINFO since 2010-12-11 18:11:09 EST (see history of this bug). I think it is valid to close the issue. Feel free to reopen in case of any concerns.

Comment 30 Christoph Wickert 2011-03-22 22:49:44 UTC
The package has not been renamed and re-reviewed yet. 

Simon, please rename the package and submit a new review. Post the bug number here, clear the NEEDINFO flag and close this bug again. Thanks!

Comment 31 Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 2014-02-24 13:49:40 UTC
Almost three years without any action on this? Maybe the current maintainer can take care of the rename.

Comment 32 Christopher Meng 2014-04-11 05:54:04 UTC
Sorry for this belated reply, I'm busy recently but I immediately read the email from bugzilla when I first received it.

(In reply to Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski from comment #31)
> Almost three years without any action on this? Maybe the current maintainer
> can take care of the rename.

Ooops, I won't do that. Let me show my opinion here:

I glanced and found that the timestamp of that tar archive in comment 10 was from 2005, well it's 2014 now. A nearly abandoned project if you ask me about it when I saw the first link you provided. But then Simon pointed out the aur package and I checked again, alright it's another software. Now in Fedora it's called surf-geometry, see bug 840244(I assume that you've known it, right?). Latest version of it was from 2010. Ooops again, 4 years later, this bug is still open?

Surf web browser is still being developed(not rapid releasing mode). Last version was released in Oct 2013.

Having a look at the search results of "surf" amid distros:

========================================================

http://pkgs.org/download/surf

RED TEAM: 2 seats || OpenMandriva + ROSA. They have packaged your "surf".

BLU TEAM: 6 seats (if you agree that Ubuntu is a distro actually :D), plus looking at Gentoo, they packaged the browser surf as well, but since gentoo portage is another different mechanism, I will not include it. ;)

No BSD please, different world.

========================================================

You should advise surf upstream(for your "surf", if the upstream is still alive or active) to rename their project, sometimes inventing(or, excogitating, whatever) a proper name is so easy(arbitrary, isn't it?) that they even don't care about the sequel. If people enjoy formulating their ideas in few alphabets, well, let they be.

I don't quite understand the plan. Rename the surf to surf-browser, then place the surf-geometry into the surf slot? I think it's impossible, RPM obsoletes will not work. It's also dangerous to place a completely different software to the same name in one single distro.

Therefore I guess you all want to do:

surf -> surf-browser;
retire surf slot in pkgdb;
do nothing with the surf-geometry.

Sounds true. Wait! Why should I do this? Rationality? Just because a name conflict? Don't you think it's futile and a kind of wasting time?

One sentence: "Hello everyone, why should I rename a package already in Fedora for years but can't do anything after that for the existing name created in pkgdb?"

Chances are finite, first come first served, Jason tried to prove that "well it's not always right". But the fact is true, you were late. FESCo ticket is a paradox IMO again, you can't do anything to the existing "surf" after the rename. Crux here.

Comment 33 Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski 2014-04-15 12:05:20 UTC
(In reply to Christopher Meng from comment #32)
> Therefore I guess you all want to do:
> 
> surf -> surf-browser;
> retire surf slot in pkgdb;
> do nothing with the surf-geometry.

Yes.

> Sounds true. Wait! Why should I do this? Rationality? Just because a name
> conflict? Don't you think it's futile and a kind of wasting time?

Yes, we should resolve the name conflict.

No, it's not futile. We are distribution maintainers and if upstreams don't make reasonable name choices, we should point it out to them and fix if they don't.

> One sentence: "Hello everyone, why should I rename a package already in
> Fedora for years but can't do anything after that for the existing name
> created in pkgdb?"
> 
> Chances are finite, first come first served, Jason tried to prove that "well
> it's not always right". But the fact is true, you were late. FESCo ticket is
> a paradox IMO again, you can't do anything to the existing "surf" after the
> rename. Crux here.

It's not true that you can't rename an existing package. We even had cases where approved packages were removed from distribution for various reasons. It doesn't matter that I was late to spot this package (by a couple of days, no less). You are free to run for FESCo yourself if you don't agree with their decision, but ignoring it is not right. This is part of being a package maintainer. If you don't want to do this, orphan the package and let someone else pick it up.

Comment 34 Matthew Miller 2016-04-19 16:16:19 UTC
Everyone:

a) the more-obscure software now is a dead URL
b) I can't find it by searching on the description quoted above
c) *This* package, with the name "surf" has been in Debian with this name for almost 7 years

Comment 35 Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek 2016-04-19 23:35:10 UTC
Yeah, debian and ubuntu both have surf the browser. And everybody knows that there's more Ubuntu users than sand on the beach.

Comment 36 Neal Gompa 2016-04-20 01:57:24 UTC
So in bug#1327911 (where I'm unretiring Surf), I will *not* be renaming it to surf-browser. I don't see the point of it, especially when I can't even find the other stuff, and other distros already use the name "surf" to mean the browser.

Today, Mageia[0], Debian[1], and Ubuntu[2] use that name for the browser. I have no good reason to rename it.

[0]: https://madb.mageia.org/package/show/name/surf
[1]: https://packages.debian.org/jessie/surf
[2]: http://packages.ubuntu.com/wily/surf


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