[Bug 2028054] Re: [MIR] python-rlpycairo

[Till Kamppeter]

Generally, python-reportlab is used only by HPLIP's utilities, not by
the printer and scanner drivers by themselves.

It is used by hp-scan to convert image files of scanned pages into PDF
files and by hp-sendfax to generate fax cover sheets.

Most users do not care as they use simple-scan or XSane for scanning. As
HPLIP's scanner driver is a SANE driver all these frontends work, and
probably also more reliable than HP's tool.

hp-sendfax is very really used, probably already because fax is only
rarely used nowadays. at most places it got already completely replaced
by other electronic communication means.

Also use of HPLIP at all is diminishing as modern HP printers and multi-
function devices support driverless (IPP) printing and (eSCL) scanning.

hp-sendfax is in hplip-gui which is in Universe.

hp-scan is a command line tool but not necessarily needed, there is also
scanimage of SANE, so one should check whether the binary package
"hplip" is actually needed by sane-hpaio and/or printer-driver-hpcups
and if not, demote it to Universe.

In addition, from Ubuntu 23.10 printing will be provided by the CUPS
Snap and Printer Application Snaps, which makes printer-driver-hpcups
not needed any more, and so also subject to be moved to Universe.

So for me it looks like that we can move most of HPLIP to Universe as
practically only sane-hpaio is needed to support scanners (and sane-
hpaio will also get removed in favor of Snaps in a later version of
Ubuntu).

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2028054

Title:
  [MIR] python-rlpycairo

Status in hplip package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in python-reportlab package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in python-rlpycairo package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  python-rlpycairo is a new dependency of python-reportlab (currently
  owned by Foundations).

  The only consumer of python-reportlab is hplip (owned by Desktop),
  apparently it needs it for scanning: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
  bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=651240

  $ reverse-depends src:python-reportlab -c main -r mantic
  Reverse-Depends
  ===============
  * hplip                         (for python3-reportlab)

  Packages without architectures listed are reverse-dependencies in:
  amd64, arm64, armhf, ppc64el, s390x

  src:hplip -> src:python-reportlab -> src:python-rlpycairo ->
  src:freetype-py & src:ttf-bitstream-vera

  So from the above, it sounds like this new dependency is actually
  needed (after the reportlab package dropped its renderpm extension).
  It should be discussed between Foundations and Desktop who's owning
  those dependencies and doing the MIRs for python-rlpycairo, freetype-
  py and ttf-bitstream-vera

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