Bug#1125161: Re-bootstrapping sbt and modern Scala; the Scala 3 path is now open

Emmanuel Bourg <[email protected]> Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:11:52 +0200
Newsgroups gmane.linux.debian.packages.java.devel,gmane.linux.debian.devel.java
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi Juan,

Thank you very much for working on Scala, I gave up years ago and I'm 
glad someone is picking up the ball.

I see there is a choice about preserving the old version (2.11) or not. 
If you are confident packaging a new version of Scala is achievable, 
then I'd vote for retiring the old version.

There is also a decision to make between upgrading the existing scala 
package, or switching to versioned scala-x.y packages (the existing 
scala package could then depend on the latest version, similarly to the 
default-jre package). The key factor here is backward compatibility, how 
stable is Scala nowadays? Do libraries still have to be rebuilt for new 
Scala versions? If so a versioned package might be more appropriate.

Did you consider bootstrapping Scala 3 directly instead of starting from 
2.12? Wouldn't that be easier?

Emmanuel Bourg

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