Sorry for not noticing this until now! This came up in a GitHub issue a
few weeks ago, but I'll jump in here to clarify.
Basically, the library is in "maintenance mode" and I won't be investing
time in adding new features. If there are security issues, obviously I
will take a look at those. Mostly my reasons for this are:
- The project I initially developed it for no longer needs it (switching
from C++ to Go)
- Qt itself now offers at least a basic HTTP server
I believe there was a pull request at some point to add Qt6 support and
if there is interest in salvaging, I am willing to at least put in the
effort to make sure it compiles and passes the test suite. I can offer
anyone some guidance if they want to take over the project or
maintenance of it.
- Nathan
On 2025-11-26 03:49, Andreas Tille wrote:
Control: severity -1 serious
Control: retitle -1 Should qhttpengine be removed from Debian?
Thanks
Hi Nicolas,
Am Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 11:30:38AM +0100 schrieb Nicolas Schodet:
I am not sure the package is worth salvaging:
- Being an HTTP server, it may be security sensitive.
- There was only one upload, which may indicate the original uploader
has no plan to keep working on Debian.
- There is no reverse dependency on this package.
- The last upstream release is 7 years old.
- Popularity in popcon is really low.
- Upstream seems to be working on nitroshare2, which is written in
Go,
and therefore does not need this library anymore.
The first point is what worries me the most, the other points question
whether it is worth the effort.
Thank you for those very valid points. I re-evaluated the situation
(learned that the last release was nearly 8 years ago) and its also
based on Qt5 - so we will run probably into some porting trouble once
this will be droped from Debian. Thanks also for the hint that the
main
upstream author moved to some other project.
Thus I'm hereby retitling the bug from ITS to a Pre-Removal bug. Given
that the maintainer has not responded yet I raise severity to serious
to attract attention.
In 10 days I will turn this bug into a request for removal in case
there
will be no hints that this package might be valuable inside Debian and
there is someone willing to maintain this package seriously (including
porting to Qt6).
Kind regards
Andreas.
