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Bug 229947 - mail-client/pine is obsolete and should be replaced by alpine
Summary: mail-client/pine is obsolete and should be replaced by alpine
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Gentoo Linux
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Current packages (show other bugs)
Hardware: All Linux
: High normal (vote)
Assignee: Net-Mail Packages
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-06-28 21:48 UTC by Andreas K. Hüttel
Modified: 2009-08-11 14:29 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


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Description Andreas K. Hüttel archtester gentoo-dev 2008-06-28 21:48:19 UTC
From the homepage of the pine program, http://www.washington.edu/pine/

"Pine is no longer under active development. Consider evaluating its successor, Alpine, which supports all of Pine's functionality and more."

Since alpine is using the same configuration file format as pine and presents basically the same use interface, the transition from pine to alpine should be seen as an update. 

An e-build for alpine is attached to bug #176904.
Comment 1 Sascha Lucas 2008-07-07 11:50:00 UTC
${HOMEPAGE} says: "Note: Pine development ended with version 4.64, when Pine evolved into the upwards-compatible replacement Alpine."

timestamp on SRC_URI pine4.64.tar.bz2 is 2005/09/28.

So I would kindly vote for the replacment of pine by alpine. Thanks.
Comment 2 aparat2 2008-07-28 18:21:32 UTC
What about virtual/pine?
I think it would be better then: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=223935
Comment 3 Sascha Lucas 2008-08-02 12:15:13 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> What about virtual/pine?

Perhaps not a good idea. We want mail-client/pine to be obsolete (in gentoo portage). So there is just alpine and no alternatives. right?
Comment 4 Alex V. Koval 2008-09-24 20:46:13 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> 
> Perhaps not a good idea. We want mail-client/pine to be obsolete (in gentoo
> portage). So there is just alpine and no alternatives. right?
> 

Alpine is rewrite of pine to support Unicode and do many other things, as like supporting Apache licence. The team is the same, pine development is dead, alpine is alive.


http://www.washington.edu/alpine/
Comment 5 Pacho Ramos gentoo-dev 2009-05-16 19:02:56 UTC
alpine was finally added, maybe this should be closed
Comment 6 Arthur Hagen 2009-05-18 19:19:56 UTC
As is right now, gentoo's alpine does not work as a direct replacement for pine.  The reason is that the "chappa" use flag is enabled by default, which breaks the below stated "upwards compatibility" in various ways (it uses maildirs instead of inbox as default, also .pinerc files get modified and can no longer be used by pine or unmodified alpine, and lack of explicit licensing).
If -chappa becomes default, I can see it as a valid replacement that fulfills the requirements for this ticket.
Comment 7 Torsten Veller (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2009-06-25 14:37:06 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)
> ...and lack of explicit licensing...

Ups, I couldn't find a license statement too.

@Eduardo Chappa:
Is there an explicit license of the patches?
Are we allowed to distribute them?

Thanks
Comment 8 Eduardo Chappa 2009-06-25 14:47:49 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #6)
> > ...and lack of explicit licensing...
> 
> Ups, I couldn't find a license statement too.
> 
> @Eduardo Chappa:
> Is there an explicit license of the patches?
> Are we allowed to distribute them?

In regards to the questions, no there is no explicit licensing, but you are allowed to distribute them. 

-- 
Eduardo
Comment 9 Peter Gantner (a.k.a. nephros) 2009-06-25 15:05:47 UTC
**mail-client/alpine is obsolete and should be replaced by re-alpine**
;)

As you may or may not now, alpine has been branched following a discussion starting with this post:
http://marc.info/?l=alpine-info&m=124439057424991&w=2
it which is stated at one point that it is unlikely that UW will release another version after the current 2-00.

A git repository has been set up at http://sourceforge.net/projects/re-alpine/

I do not suggest to switch from alpine to re-alpine snapshots right away (so I have not made a seperate bug), but that project may be the way to go in the future. 

One strong point about it is that they accept third-party patches like the imap 2007e fix from CVE-2008-5514.patch, and there is a feature request to add the chappa patchset to the tree. The UW source is read-only.

Constructing a re-alpine-9999 live ebuild from the 2.00 one is trivial enough (add git, do a bit of name-mangling and either block alpine or do some more name-mangling to avoid collisions), I have one here and if you are interested I can post it.
Comment 10 Eduardo Chappa 2009-06-26 16:36:44 UTC
(In reply to comment #9)

> it which is stated at one point that it is unlikely that UW will release
> another version after the current 2-00.

Take the comments in the thread you linked to with a grain of salt. There is some truth in all of that thread, but not everything is how it was painted there. 

The fact that there is a re-alpine project has really nothing to do with the future of the project. What is more important is if there is a community of developers (centered around any project) that are actively contributing code. That does not exist.

The snapshot in the read-only repository of UW have fixed some bugs present in version 2.00. This snapshot is already in version 2.01, but it has not been officially released. I do not know exactly why.

The current alpine project also accepts patches, it is just not available for writing outside of the UW-alpine team (of which I am not a member).

I do not see the need to move to another project, unless an active development project be created somewhere, or the re-alpine project starts finally moving.

-- 
Eduardo

Comment 11 Peter Gantner (a.k.a. nephros) 2009-08-11 13:19:04 UTC
Bug #176904 has been closed, maybe this one should be closed as well?

OR (my preferred option) renamed/cloned into a alpine -> re-alpine bug?
Comment 12 Andreas K. Hüttel archtester gentoo-dev 2009-08-11 14:29:49 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> Bug #176904 has been closed, maybe this one should be closed as well?
> 
> OR (my preferred option) renamed/cloned into a alpine -> re-alpine bug?
> 

Marking this fixed, since alpine is now in the tree. 

If you want a realpine bug, go ahead. I stopped using the program in the meantime.