SRU for removal of obsolete Bitcoin packages from precise (Attn: SRU team)

[Micha Bailey]

Greetings, Ubuntu Developers!

A few months ago, I started a discussion about the fact that the Bitcoin
software is not suitable for inclusion in Ubuntu, where it is essentially
frozen in time and unable to be updated. That discussion led to the
packages' removal from trusty and blacklisting from Debian syncing going
forward. Now, the question is on removal of the software, currently version
0.3.24, from Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, since that version is almost
entirely broken, and will most likely not successfully complete a sync with
the network at all. Scott Howard prepared a dummy package, that replaces
the binary with a notice of removal, and attached it to the bug that was
opened on the issue, bug #1314616
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bitcoin/+bug/1314616>. At the
time, I was told that the procedure was to prepare the package, subscribe
the SRU team to the bug, find a sponsor to upload it to the proposed
section for precise, and then once it was uploaded, the SRU team would
discuss it and decide on it. Last week, I spoke to Stéphane Graber on IRC,
requesting sponsorship. I was then told, "that's something which needs
discussion with the sru team, not just a standard upload", and that "If
someone was to upload that today, I'd reject it when it hits the queue
because it doesn't meet our current SRU criteria, so if you don't want that
to happen, this needs to be discussed prior to upload".

Then, a little more inquiring in IRC, and Colin Watson informed me that the
best way to start this discussion would be to bring it up here. So, I'd
like to request that the SRU Team discuss this, and ideally get it into the
archives as quickly as is feasible, since we still occasionally get people
in the Bitcoin channels complaining that they're having trouble, only to
find out that they're using the broken version of the software that you are
shipping by default. Some earlier discussion is linked from the bug
mentioned above.

Thanks in advance,

Micha
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