Bug 176044
| Summary: | ports: print/ghostview (1.5_3) segfault/coredump | ||||||
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| Product: | Ports & Packages | Reporter: | Ronald F. Guilmette <rfg> | ||||
| Component: | Individual Port(s) | Assignee: | freebsd-ports-bugs (Nobody) <ports-bugs> | ||||
| Status: | Closed Overcome By Events | ||||||
| Severity: | Affects Only Me | CC: | marino, rfg | ||||
| Priority: | Normal | ||||||
| Version: | Latest | ||||||
| Hardware: | Any | ||||||
| OS: | Any | ||||||
| Attachments: |
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Description
Ronald F. Guilmette
2013-02-12 03:20:00 UTC
State Changed From-To: open->feedback Hi, unforgently this port don't have a maintainer. Responsible Changed From-To: freebsd-ports-bugs->stefan Take this, since I have also taken ports/162045. Hello Ronald, after trying a bit, I can add the following facts: - Ghostview dumps core for me, too, when I try to open the PostScript file you attached on my (amd64) FreeBSD 9.1 system. - Gv (from port print/gv) does not dump core when I open the file on my FreeBSD 9.1 system. - Ghostview does not dump core when I open the file on a (amd64) Debian system. So it seems to be a FreeBSD-specific issue. I haven't investigated the actual cause of the segmentation fault, and thus do not have a fix, either. Your best bet to make any progress would probably be sending a mail to the freebsd-ports mailing list. (To be honest, though, I wonder if there's a good reason for using an ancient, unmaintained software when there's an actively maintained and working replacement like print/gv.) Best regards, Stefan p.s.: I'm going to close the older PR about this (ports/162045) to avoid redundancy. In message <20130429095605.GA1720@birne.dunkelkammer.void>, you wrote: >after trying a bit, I can add the following facts: > >- Ghostview dumps core for me, too, when I try to open the PostScript file > you attached on my (amd64) FreeBSD 9.1 system. OK. Thank you very much for verifying. >- Gv (from port print/gv) does not dump core when I open the file on my > FreeBSD 9.1 system. That is interesting. >- Ghostview does not dump core when I open the file on a (amd64) Debian > system. I see. >So it seems to be a FreeBSD-specific issue. That seems like an entirely reasonable conclusion. >I haven't investigated the actual cause of the segmentation fault, and >thus do not have a fix, either. Your best bet to make any progress would >probably be sending a mail to the freebsd-ports mailing list. I'm sorry. I don't follow you. I filed a formal PR. In an ideal Universe, that alone would cause the port maintainer to at least make some modest effort at finding a fix, don't you think? >(To be >honest, though, I wonder if there's a good reason for using an ancient, >unmaintained software I'm sorry. Again I am not following you. If the package in question is no longer maintained (e.g. because it no longer has a living breathing formally designated maintainer who is also, conveniently, resident in the same dimensional time-space continuum as you and I) then why is said port still present in the ports tree? (The presence in the ports tree of ports with no active maintainer would seem to me to be counterproductive.) Regards, rfg Ronald F. Guilmette, 29.04.13, 22:25h CEST: > >So it seems to be a FreeBSD-specific issue. > > That seems like an entirely reasonable conclusion. > > >I haven't investigated the actual cause of the segmentation fault, and > >thus do not have a fix, either. Your best bet to make any progress would > >probably be sending a mail to the freebsd-ports mailing list. > > I'm sorry. I don't follow you. > > I filed a formal PR. In an ideal Universe, that alone would cause the > port maintainer to at least make some modest effort at finding a fix, > don't you think? I agree that would be ideal from the point of view of someone who merely wants to use a port. Yet: I am not the port's maintainer. The port does not currently have a maintainer, i.e. a single individual who has enough interest in it to step forward and continuously take care of it. And apparently, nobody else has shown any interest in trying to resolve this issue since your first PR on it - and that was in 2011. The reason I mentioned the mailing list was that discussing it there would expose it to a larger audience and raise chances of finding someone who is able to fix it AND is interested enough to actually do it. Something that the PR hasn't achieved so far... > >(To be > >honest, though, I wonder if there's a good reason for using an ancient, > >unmaintained software > > I'm sorry. Again I am not following you. > > If the package in question is no longer maintained (e.g. because it no > longer has a living breathing formally designated maintainer who is also, > conveniently, resident in the same dimensional time-space continuum as > you and I) then why is said port still present in the ports tree? Because it works. It is not uncommon for ports to be maintained "by the community". There is more than one port in the tree that receives updates and bugfixes now and then without anybody wanting to be THE maintainer. As for print/ghostview: You might just be the first to notice the issue you reported. Or others noticed it and didn't care enough about it. (Given that, you would be welcome to take over maintainership of the port, of course.) > (The presence in the ports tree of ports with no active maintainer would > seem to me to be counterproductive.) I understand that opinion to a degree, and I disagree, but discussing that here would serve no purpose and would not change anything, either. The freebsd-ports mailing list would be a better place for such a discussion. Best regards, Stefan In message <20130429223943.GN1720@birne.dunkelkammer.void>, you wrote: >Ronald F. Guilmette, 29.04.13, 22:25h CEST: >> I filed a formal PR. In an ideal Universe, that alone would cause the >> port maintainer to at least make some modest effort at finding a fix, >> don't you think? > >I agree that would be ideal from the point of view of someone who merely >wants to use a port. > >Yet: I am not the port's maintainer. The port does not currently have a >maintainer, i.e. a single individual who has enough interest in it to step >forward and continuously take care of it. And apparently, nobody else has >shown any interest in trying to resolve this issue since your first PR on >it - and that was in 2011. That would seem to be the case, yes. >The reason I mentioned the mailing list was that discussing it there would >expose it to a larger audience and raise chances of finding someone who is >able to fix it AND is interested enough to actually do it. Something that >the PR hasn't achieved so far... Well, if I can find some time, I'll try to fix it myself. I suspect that doing that may be not substantially more labor intensive than trying to find a person on the ports mailing list to gives a darn about this specific package. >> If the package in question is no longer maintained (e.g. because it no >> longer has a living breathing formally designated maintainer who is also, >> conveniently, resident in the same dimensional time-space continuum as >> you and I) then why is said port still present in the ports tree? > >Because it works. It is not uncommon for ports to be maintained "by the >community". There is more than one port in the tree that receives updates >and bugfixes now and then without anybody wanting to be THE maintainer. In all ernesty, I did not know that. Thank you for educating me. I am just a lowly user, so I have, at most, only minimal say in community policy, but if it were up to me I would banish any and all ports for which no specific individual would step forward and take final responsibility. The absence of such clearly identified persons is, I think, what causes perfectly valid PRs (by the thousands?) to languish with no action for years on end. >As for print/ghostview: You might just be the first to notice the issue >you reported. Or others noticed it and didn't care enough about it. Yes. I try diligently to file formal PRs on every bug I find because I feel that other people... other users... may see the same issues but not have time to do so. >(Given that, you would be welcome to take over maintainership of the port, of >course.) Thank you, but even if I were so inclined, that would have to go onto my already overflowing TO-DO list. I probably wouldn't get to actually doing anything until, like, 2017. >> (The presence in the ports tree of ports with no active maintainer would >> seem to me to be counterproductive.) > >I understand that opinion to a degree, and I disagree, but discussing that >here would serve no purpose and would not change anything, either. On this, we agree. I thank you for having looked into (and for trying to reproduce) my PR. That is certainly more than anyone else has done in about 2 years. Just curious... Are you single-handedly tyring to clear out the massive PR backlog? If so, you have my undying admiration. Regards, rfg For the record: Discussion taken off GNATS, as it doesn't have anything to do with the problem reported. Responsible Changed From-To: stefan->freebsd-ports-bugs Return to the pool for someone to investigate the actual cause of the segmentation fault. rfg, I suggest that you provide a patch to update ghostview to version 3.5.8: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gv/gv.htm or rather, it seems gv is a new project deriving from dead ghostview, so you could create a new port that would replace this one. Try it. If it solves the segfault, then submit the new port to this PR. I'll personally handle it if you do that. John oh, I spoke too soon, it already exists: http://www.freshports.org/print/gv/ So why use ghostview over gv? okay, I just read the backlog. It seems this discussion has already been had. Why shouldn't I just deprecate this port in favor of gv? it's not even staged. A commit references this bug: Author: marino Date: Thu Jun 19 10:06:15 UTC 2014 New revision: 358374 URL: http://svnweb.freebsd.org/changeset/ports/358374 Log: Deprecate print/ghostview for removal at end of July 2014 Gentoo removed ghostview in favor of print/gv eight years ago. The latter is maintained both in ports and upstream, and it's a continuation of the original ghostview 1.5. This port is unstaged, unmaintained, and segfaults. It's time to pull the plug I think. PR: 176044 Approved by: portmgr (implicit) Changes: head/print/ghostview/Makefile Gentee removed ghostview in favor of gv eight years ago. Time to follow suit, I think. Deprecated, to be removed on 1 Aug 2014 |
