Please backport PyQt4 related packages

Well, here is what I've tried so far. I've probably made grave Debian package no-no's, but ah well, if ya don't build as root, ya don't mess anything up.

[Unless otherwise stated, all dependencies of referenced packages were installed as well]

debhelper 5.0.7ubuntu13 was already installed (from Dapper)
python (2.4) was already installed
Installed python-all-dev from Dapper
libqt4-dev was already installed (from Dapper)
Installed sip4 and python-sip4-dev from Dapper
Installed python-central from Edgy repositories
Installed dpatch from Dapper

Modified python-qt4_4.0.1-1.dsc
 Changed debhelper version to >= 5.0.7
 Changed sip4 version to >=4.3.2
 Changed python-sip4-dev version to >= 4.3.2

Well, that part didn't do any good, because the control file still called for the other versions. Let's try the -d flag.

That got past the version errors, but now I have other build errors, mainly about not finding pyversions (although /usr/share/pycentral-data/pyversions.py does exist). See attachment for build errors.

Putting pyversions.py in my path and doing a symbolic link to it from pyversion got me this:

dpkg-buildpackage: source package is python-qt4
dpkg-buildpackage: source version is 4.0.1-1
dpkg-buildpackage: source changed by Torsten Marek <email address hidden>
dpkg-buildpackage: host architecture i386
 fakeroot debian/rules clean
dpatch deapply-all
rm -rf patch-stamp patch-stampT debian/patched

But then it hung there, and the X cursor turned into a cross, like you would see when doing a screen shot. No, really, it did, and it's a repeatable case.

dpkg -L python-central tells me there is no /usr/bin/pyversions installed, so I'm not sure what the build script is looking for. Probably has to do with an out of date debhelper or sip4. Wonder if I could build those from source...

/.
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/py_compilefiles
/usr/bin/pycentral
/usr/bin/dh_pycentral
/usr/share
/usr/share/pycentral-data
/usr/share/pycentral-data/pyversions.py
/usr/share/debhelper
/usr/share/debhelper/autoscripts
/usr/share/debhelper/autoscripts/postinst-pycentral
/usr/share/debhelper/autoscripts/prerm-pycentral
/usr/share/python
/usr/share/python/runtime.d
/usr/share/python/runtime.d/pycentral.rtinstall
/usr/share/python/runtime.d/pycentral.rtremove
/usr/share/python/runtime.d/pycentral.rtupdate
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/python-central
/usr/share/doc/python-central/copyright
/usr/share/doc/python-central/changelog.gz
/usr/share/man
/usr/share/man/man1
/usr/share/man/man1/pycentral.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/dh_pycentral.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/py_compilefiles.1.gz

I've confirmed that I need this, as I (with my limited deb package experience) have been unable to backport pytqt4 myself. :)

There's a huge winding stack of dependencies to get PyQt4 working in Dapper, and it's just not really worth it for the average user. No, I'm not saying that it's not worth it because I'm lazy and don't feel like doing it -- that's not the issue at hand.

The point is, backporting pyqt puts a large burden on the Backports team to continue maintaining PyQt4 on Dapper along with its related packages, and sooner or later Edgy sources will no longer compile according to Backports policies, and then we've hit a brick wall.

If you want to develop on PyQt4, I'd expect you to be able to install it on your system in some fashion. (Else, maybe look for an easier to maintain language?). Maybe not as a deb package, but at least manual installation techniques.

For these reasons, I am currently going to reject this request.