protobuf-cpp in conflict with protobuf3-cpp

[btywoniuk (Bart)]

Can't install protobuf-cpp because conflicting ports are active: protobuf3-cpp

Error: Can't install protobuf-cpp because conflicting ports are active: protobuf3-cpp
Error: Problem while installing protobuf-cpp
Error: rev-upgrade failed: Error rebuilding mosh

[raimue (Rainer Müller)]

See discussion in ​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/690

[raimue (Rainer Müller)]

Here is a look at what other distributions are going, because they must have figured this out already. Most seem to provide ​protobuf with version 2.6.x or 3.5.x (the C++ library) and also ​protobuf-c at 1.2.x or 1.3.x (a wrapper around the C++ code for pure C).

​protobuf-cpp and ​protobuf3-cpp do not exist anywhere else but in MacPorts. I assume this is where all our problems come from, it is not supposed to be packaged like this in parallel.

Blair, any comments on why you chose to package it this way? Is there any reason to keep protobuf 2.x around?

I propose to get rid of protobuf 2.x and simplify this:

1. move protobuf3-cpp to protobuf
2. mark protobuf3-cpp and protobuf-cpp as replaced_by protobuf
3. move protobuf3-java to protobuf-java
4. move py-protobuf3 to py-protobuf
5. mark py-protobuf3 as replaced_by py-protobuf

This would match what everybody else seems to be doing.

[pmetzger (Perry E. Metzger)]

Rainer, this seems good to me. It will reduce the mess a lot. It will probably require upgrading a couple of the ports but there aren't that many involved.

[pmetzger (Perry E. Metzger)]

I have a pull request in now to update protobuf-c to a version that is compatible with the latest protobuf implementation. That should be committed soon. I believe the other ports that might not work with the latest protobuf can also be easily updated.

[pmetzger (Perry E. Metzger)]

Okay, after speaking with Rainer, I'm more or less executing his suggestion.

[blair (Blair Zajac)]

The original naming was after zeroc's ice. The plan looks good to me, although it doesn't leave space for protobuf 4 if it ever comes out. But we can worry about that problem in the future.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to blair:

The plan looks good to me, although it doesn't leave space for protobuf 4 if it ever comes out. But we can worry about that problem in the future.

Wouldn't all the ports simply be updated to version 4 at that time? Why keep version 3 around then?

[blair (Blair Zajac)]

Some ports may not easily be upgradable. We commonly support multiple versions of ABI incompatible libraries, e.g. serf0 and serf1, so why would protobuf be different?

[pmetzger (Perry E. Metzger)]

As of now:

1. ola cannot be updated to protobuf3 without adding some patches found in ​https://github.com/OpenLightingProject/ola/pull/1336/files
2. rethinkdb doesn't seem to build at the moment so I can't test it. Our version is ancient and nomaintainer.
3. The version of shogun-devel we have is 4.0.0, while shogun itself is at version 6.1.3. maintainer is stromnov.

I still need to look at MyPaint and sumo. I have pull requests in for the rest or have already committed them.

[fswasey]

Any suggestions about getting mosh upgraded while this problem is being resolved?

$ sudo port list outdated
Warning: The 'list' action only shows the currently available version of each port. To see installed versions, use the 'installed' action.
mosh                           @1.3.2          net/mosh

$ sudo port upgrade mosh
--->  Computing dependencies for protobuf3-cpp
Error: Can't install protobuf3-cpp because conflicting ports are active: protobuf-cpp
Error: Problem while installing protobuf3-cpp
Error: Follow https://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets to report a bug.

Oh -- never mind... it was the currently installed version of mosh that was requiring protobuf-cpp ... worked around it by uninstalling mosh and then installing it again.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to fswasey:

$ sudo port list outdated

Note that:

1. port list outdated does not show you what you think it shows you. Please see wiki:FAQ#portlist. You want port outdated instead.
2. There is no need to use sudo for read-only actions like port list or port outdated or port installed.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to blair:

Some ports may not easily be upgradable. We commonly support multiple versions of ABI incompatible libraries, e.g. serf0 and serf1, so why would protobuf be different?

Well please decide what you want. If you want to offer multiple versions such that different ports can use different versions of protobuf, they need to not conflict; see #56102. That's what I originally suggested, and that's what serf0 and serf1 do, but I don't think you responded to that idea for protobuf, and others took charge and decided to upgrade everything to the latest version instead. See ​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/pull/1628.

[blair (Blair Zajac)]

Since I'm not doing any work on it, I'm just throwing in suggestions. The better way is to support multiple versions to deal with ports that have dependencies that haven't updated.

That said, since I'm not doing the work, this works, since it appears most ports have been updated to protobuf3.

To the original question, at the time, I didn't do the work to have the two ports be installable at the same time, maybe due to lack of time, to do the job right.

[pmetzger (Perry E. Metzger)]

I think we are going to complete the conversion of the rest of the ports to protobuf3 in the next couple of weeks.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

Has duplicate #56102

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

Is this still an open issue?

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

Yes

$ port info --conflicts protobuf-cpp
conflicts: protobuf3-cpp

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

Ultimately we need to segregate these ports, in order to support multiple upstream versions. So I'll add this to my list.

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

While this is only an intermediate step, a new segregated port - protobuf3-cpp-upstream - has been created, covering the latest release:

​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/7e50f3aada608a3f03515f9eae5eba01d4abb04b

Still need to tackle segregating protobuf-cpp, but it's on my longer-term to-do list.

[mascguy (Christopher Nielsen)]

Replying to mascguy:

While this is only an intermediate step, a new segregated port - protobuf3-cpp-upstream - has been created, covering the latest release:

​https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commit/7e50f3aada608a3f03515f9eae5eba01d4abb04b

On a related note: Given that the Python port doesn't appear to be versioned - preventing side-by-side installation in that space - it's not clear whether it will be feasible to update py-protobuf3. Though if the latest release is backward compatible - at least for the Python bindings - perhaps updating is possible.

Still need to take a closer look at all of this, when I can find time. Stay tuned...