GNU bug report logs - #26176
What to do about unmaintained frameworks like webkitgtk@2.4 in Guix?

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
To: bug-guix <at> gnu.org
Subject: What to do about unmaintained frameworks like webkitgtk <at> 2.4 in Guix?
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2017 16:44:14 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

We do a good job of deploying security updates to webkitgtk <at> 2.14.
Typically, we push the update within 24 hours.

However, several packages still depend on webkitgtk <at> 2.4, which is
unmaintained upstream and surely contains many serious security
vulnerabilities.

$ guix refresh -l webkitgtk <at> 2.4
Building the following 6 packages would ensure 10 dependent packages are
rebuilt: aria-maestosa-1.4.11 wxmaxima-16.04.2 filezilla-3.24.1
elixir-1.3.2 kicad-4.0-1.4ee344e audacity-2.1.2

People who install these packages probably do not expect to install
software containing publicly disclosed security vulnerabilities.

We should try to make these packages use a maintained version of
webkitgtk.

If that's not possible, what should we do?

Here is a primer on the tangled world of webkit forks and versions:
https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2016/02/01/on-webkit-security-updates/

It states that distros should not expect webkitgtk <at> 2.4 to receive
security updates:
------
We could attempt to provide security backports to WebKitGTK+ 2.4. This
would be very time consuming and therefore very expensive, so count this
out.
------

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