should we rearrange qt5 packages for newer upstream releases?

[nieder]

We're stuck at Qt5.7 because Qt5.9 would start being dist restricted (10.11+) and Qt5.15 is 10.13+. Therefore, to have newer releases, we would need to either:

1. keep qt5 as the latest version (currently v5.15) and add qt57, qt59, qt512 families as dist restricted versions, or
2. keep qt5 as v5.7, then generate qt59, qt512, and qt515 packages as needed.

Pro of (1):

• don't need to upgrade/fix/restrict any dependent package from qt5 until it's shown to fail against newer Qt5.15, then we point it to lesser qt5x package created as necessary.
  Drawbacks of (1):
• Some packages will end up broken from a Qt5 upgrade until someone notices and points them to correct qt5x.
• Will get a bunch of dist restricted qt5-using packages pointing to older qt5x if they no longer work with the latest qt5.

Pro of (2):

• existing packages will continue to work with existing Qt5 (v5.7).
  Drawback of (2):
• Need to manually upgrade each package we want to test against newer qt5x.
• As packages get upgraded to dist restricted qt5x, they will also need to be dist restricted and we'll have older %v and newer %v .info files.

In either case, there's little point in having qt59 and qt512. We probably just want v5.7 and v5.15 with whatever naming convention at this point.

This will probably carry over to Qt6, where current latest v6.7.0 (no point in starting from 6.0) is only for Xcode14 or newer (macOS 12.5+)

Probably leaning towards No2 (new qt515 family) since it won't cause breakage.

I have a branch from a while back that does Option 2. @dhomeier has a PR #675 that does Option 1 but does not have the necessary dist restricting.

[TheSin-]

man I wish we could just use qt5 and a meta package that would install the highest available, that's what meta packages are for, the perl/pythong mess makes me nuts.

[nieder]

So each qt5{7,15}-FOO pkg would Provides: qt5-FOO ? And then point packages to use qt5-FOO so that they would automatically get the correct qt57 or qt515?

Or meta = bundle?

[TheSin-]

Meta is normally a bundle and it would be sooo much cleaner for reps but the bundle version couldn’t be a dep which would be a mess, multi dists with multi package versions is just a mess

[nieder]

Unfortunately, there are 60+ qt5(.7) packages/splitoffs (and Qt6 count will be higher). Bundling by source package would require at least 25 bundles and then what's the point of SplitOffs if a Qt using package would just Depends on the bundle? I guess I don't understand how bundle packages would help with the different versioning. I've only dealt with bundle packages as convenience grouping to install a suite instead of individual apps.

[TheSin-]

plus it wouldn't help as I mentioned, we couldn't version the bundles as each dish gets a different version, it's just a huge mess and a HUGE PITA