Aspell Deprecation

Summary

Deprecating aspell package because there are better-supported spell checkers like hunspell/enchant2 which could be used instead. It also has an upstream with almost 4 years of no action.

Owner

Name: Lukas Javorsky
Email: ljavorsk@redhat.com

Current status

Targeted release: Fedora Linux 39
Last updated: 2023-09-28
devel thread
FESCo issue: #3009
Tracker bug: #2210277
Release notes tracker: #1019

Detailed Description

Upstream of the aspell package has been inactive for almost 4 years now. Most of the packages that have been using aspell in the past did migrate to the supported hunspell package or any other spell checker.

The plan is simple:

1) Deprecate aspell package.

2) Create Bugzilla tracker to request all packages to be migrated to the hunspell or any other spell checker (let maintainers choose their preferred one).

3) After all of the packages have been migrated, create a Change to retire aspell from Fedora

Feedback

Early feedback from the community is located in this (Devel list announce)

Benefit to Fedora

Fedora shouldn't maintain a dead package. This change will ensure Fedora has relevant and upstreamed packages in it's repositories.

Scope

Proposal owners: Package aspell will be deprecated and the migration request will be filled as a Bugzilla to all dependent packages

Other developers: Migrate to hunspell package or any other supported spellchecker present in Fedora repositories.

Release engineering: No action required

Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Alignment with Objectives:

Upgrade/compatibility impact

As this is only deprecation change, nothing will need to be handled manually. The dependent packages will migrate to hunspell or any other supported spellchecker present in Fedora repositories.

How To Test

User Experience

Dependencies

List of the packages from Fedora 39

Requires

repoquery -q --repo=rawhide{,-source} --whatrequires 'aspell*' | grep -v '^aspell' | grep -v 'src$' | pkgname

eiskaltdcpp-qt

enchant-aspell

enchant2-aspell

kf5-sonnet-core

moodle

perl-Code-TidyAll

perl-Text-Aspell

php-pspell

qa-tools

recoll

xedit

xmlcopyeditor

yagf

BuildRequires

repoquery -q --repo=rawhide{,-source} --whatrequires 'aspell*' | grep -v '^aspell' | grep 'src$' | pkgname

eiskaltdcpp

enchant

enchant2

hunspell-az

hunspell-csb

hunspell-de

hunspell-en

hunspell-fa

hunspell-gv

hunspell-ky

ibus-typing-booster

inkscape

kf5-sonnet

logjam

perl-MouseX-ConfigFromFile

perl-MouseX-Types-Path-Class