Bug#1082010: libgdata: unmaintained upstream

Source: libgdata
Severity: important
Tags: trixie sid upstream wontfix
User: [email protected]
Usertags: oldlibs
X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]

According to comments on
<https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libgdata/-/merge_requests/47>,
libgdata is effectively unmaintained upstream. I am not aware of any
obvious replacement.

Several packages in Debian depend on it and would be broken by its
removal, but its uses in most of them are trivial/obsolete:

Genuine(?) uses
---------------

- gvfs has a runtime dependency, for the Google Drive plugin. This could
  be disabled by compiling with -Dgoogle=false if desired.

- gnome-shell-extension-gsconnect Recommends the GIR typelib. I haven't
  investigated further.

Obsolete references
-------------------

- eog-plugins Build-Depends on libgdata-dev but doesn't use it any more
  (it's for a plugin for Google PicasaWeb, which was disabled after
  Google discontinued the web service).

- gnome-photos Build-Depends on libgdata-dev but doesn't use it any more
  (the plugin was disabled in order to avoid a libsoup2 / librest 0.7
  dependency)

- grilo-plugins Build-Depends on libgdata-dev, but there's a change staged
  in its git repo to remove the build-dependency

- shotwell Build-Depends on libgdata-dev but I don't see any sign that
  it's used, maybe a plugin was removed?

- totem Build-Depends on libgdata-dev but I don't see any sign that
  it's used, maybe a plugin was removed?

I think we should seriously consider removing this from trixie.

    smcv