Debian Bug report logs - #1057080
ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

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Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Will Thompson <[email protected]>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>

Subject: ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2023 11:30:14 +0000

Package: ibus-mozc
Version: 2.28.4715.102+dfsg-2.2
Severity: normal

ibus-mozc contains an xdg autostart script for GNOME sessions which 
checks whether any ibus input methods are already configured for the 
user session and, if not, prepends the mozc-jp input method to the list.

From reading #983623 I believe the intention is to remove the need for 
manual setup after the package is installed. However, this also means 
that if the package happens to be installed on the system, the input 
method will be enabled even if the user has no interest in Japanese 
text input. I believe the xdg-autostart script is the wrong way to 
handle this. GNOME Initial Setup selects an appropriate input method 
for the configured locale. On Debian systems, for Japanese, this is 
ibus-mozc (if installed) or ibus-anthy (if mozc is not installed but 
anthy is). It is true that, if you install ibus-mozc after configuring 
your desktop session, it will not be enabled; but 
task-japanese-gnome-desktop recommends ibus-mozc so I would expect that 
mozc would typically be installed.

The current approach causes a particular problem on image-based 
systems. Endless OS is a Debian-based distribution which is distributed 
as an immutable snapshot, using libostree. End-users do not have the 
ability to add or remove Debian packages from the system. This means 
that we must bundle a reasonable input method for every language our 
users may wish to use. By including ibus-mozc in the immutable image, 
mozc gets automatically enabled on (for example) my UK English system. 
So at present we have to either patch the mozc package (the current 
approach) or remove support for Japanese text input from our OS. (We 
previously had the same problem with ibus-anthy, see #992753, but since 
gnome-desktop 43.2-2 switched to preferring mozc, we have followed this 
switch.)

Please consider removing the XDG autostart script in both packages.

Regards,

– Will

-- System Information:
Distributor ID:    Endless
Description:    Endless OS 5.2.0
Release:    5.2.0
Codename:    n/a
Architecture: x86_64

Kernel: Linux 6.5.0-10-generic (SMP w/8 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE 
not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: unable to detect

Versions of packages ibus-mozc depends on:
ii  ibus             1.5.27-5
ii  libabsl20220623  20220623.1-1
ii  libc6            2.36-9+deb12u3
ii  libgcc-s1        12.2.0-14
ii  libglib2.0-0     2.74.6-2
ii  libibus-1.0-5    1.5.27-5
ii  libprotobuf32    3.21.12-3
ii  libstdc++6       12.2.0-14
ii  libxcb-xfixes0   1.15-1
ii  libxcb1          1.15-1
ii  mozc-data        2.28.4715.102+dfsg-2.2
ii  mozc-server      2.28.4715.102+dfsg-2.2

Versions of packages ibus-mozc recommends:
ii  mozc-utils-gui  2.28.4715.102+dfsg-2.2

ibus-mozc suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Will Thompson <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Date: Fri, 3 May 2024 10:52:15 +0100

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I noticed today that the Live GNOME ISO for bookworm has the same
behaviour. The live user ends up with ibus-mozc as the default input
method, albeit defaulting to direct input of Latin characters, with us
english as the second input method.

This seems weird. None of the other ibus input methods included with the
live ISO have this behaviour.

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Message #15 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Yao Wei (魏銘廷) <[email protected]>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 10:27:19 +0800

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Package: ibus-mozc
Version: 2.28.4715.102+dfsg-2.3
Followup-For: Bug #1057080

Hi,

I happened to have the same problem to produce images at work.

I tried removing /etc/xdg/autostart/ibus-mozc-gnome-initial-setup.desktop
so it won't set up mozc in any condition.  It seems gnome-initial-setup
can still set up mozc without the script in place.

What is the startup script used for? If it is solely used for setting up
ibus-mozc after running gnome-initial-setup, could we remove it?

Thanks,
Yao Wei

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Message #20 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: me <[email protected]>

To: [email protected], YOSHINO Yoshihito <[email protected]>, Nobuhiro Iwamatsu <[email protected]>

Cc: Will Thompson <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2024 12:52:17 +0800

Hi,

(Looping the patch author into this bug.)

Turns out it seems to be caused by #983623, which is to provide scripts
to set up ibus-mozc after the installation of the package, and according
to my understanding, this is unrelated to gnome-initial-setup package.

While I can understand that this patch is to serve Japanese users of
Debian and its derivatives, in our case we need ibus-mozc to be
installed in the system but not activated automatically so the image can
serve users using different languages.

I think either we can fix the script so ibus-mozc won't get set up if
LOCALE is not ja_JP, or we should remove the script completely and
require users to set it up (which is the case for other IBus engines).

Thanks,
Yao Wei

Message #25 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Osamu Aoki <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Subject: RE: ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2024 17:14:50 +0900

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 Hi,

I am not the maintainer of this package but came to this bug after hearing it on
a Debian JP workshop session.

I think what should happen is the following:

For now, Endless OS should create its customization package which used dpkg-
divert to disable ibus-mozc's autostart script and provides its own per-user
input method setting script (or use gnome-initial-setup?).   After all, the act
of installing all the language support packages is a non-typical use case.

Here is my rationale and comment for the future direction.:

Fundamental problem is that Debian Package installation script can configure
system wide settings via post-inst script but not each user's personal settings.
 Since ibus input method activation is performed per-user basis, we need some
mechanism to make 99% of use case as smooth as possible like what is done. Under
normal use case, whoever install ibus-mozc expects it to work upon first login
to the system.

I do understand what ibus-mozc is doing may not be the best technical solution
but is a reasonable **DE independent solution**.

If you can come up with a new **DE independent** per-user IM setting package and
upload to Debian, we can stop using current mechanism. That will be great
contribution to Debian from Endless OS. (FYI: I like your Gnome DE mod code
which I use via extension.)

Please remember Debian need to support many DEs.

Best regards,

Osamu

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Message #33 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Osamu Aoki <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected], YOSHINO Yoshihito <[email protected]>, [email protected]

Subject: RE: ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2024 07:29:33 +0900

Hi,

I have a second thought after good night sleep

What Yao Wei (魏銘廷) suggested may be in good direction but I want it 
to be done with **one twist**.

Action 1: add /etc/default/ibus-mozc with its default content

```
# Change "ja_JP" in the following to "ALWAYS" if you wish mozc to be set-up
# under non-Ja_JP environment too.
START_IBUS_MOZC=ja_JP
```

Action2: Modify /usr/share/ibus-mozc/ibus-mozc-gnome-initial-setup.sh 
started by /etc/xdg/autostart/ibus-mozc-gnome-initial-setup.desktop
as:
  * Start this set-up script:
    * if START_IBUS_MOZC is not "ja_JP" in /etc/default/ibus-mozc or 
    * if LOCALE is "ja_JP"

Action 3: Add README.Debian explaining situation

This way, people like me using mozc under en_US have way to work around the
change proposed by Yao Wei.

osamu

FYI: I still think creating non-DE dependent ibus setup program is a good idea.
Current hackish dconf tweak is rather fragile.

Message #41 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Yao Wei (魏銘廷) <[email protected]>

To: Osamu Aoki <[email protected]>

Cc: [email protected], [email protected], YOSHINO Yoshihito <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2024 09:57:35 +0800

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

On 24/06/23 07:29AM, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> What Yao Wei (魏銘廷) suggested may be in good direction but I want it 
> to be done with **one twist**.
> 
> Action 1: add /etc/default/ibus-mozc with its default content
> 
> ```
> # Change "ja_JP" in the following to "ALWAYS" if you wish mozc to be set-up
> # under non-Ja_JP environment too.
> START_IBUS_MOZC=ja_JP
> ```
> 
> Action2: Modify /usr/share/ibus-mozc/ibus-mozc-gnome-initial-setup.sh 
> started by /etc/xdg/autostart/ibus-mozc-gnome-initial-setup.desktop
> as:
>   * Start this set-up script:
>     * if START_IBUS_MOZC is not "ja_JP" in /etc/default/ibus-mozc or 
>     * if LOCALE is "ja_JP"
> 
> Action 3: Add README.Debian explaining situation
> 
> This way, people like me using mozc under en_US have way to work around the
> change proposed by Yao Wei.

(for Aoki: sorry that I didn't reply all so you are receiving two emails,
I was setting up mutt again)

In addition to your proposal, we can add a debconf config to configure
/etc/default/ibus-mozc during interactive installation to resolve cases
using mozc in other LANG environments. I think we can list it as
something nice to have.

I hope that it can be defaulted not to automatically setup for
installer/live image building automations, since they install ibus-mozc
in the build environment and the images are mostly multilingual.

Yao Wei

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Message #49 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Will Thompson <[email protected]>

To: Osamu Aoki <[email protected]>, [email protected]

Cc: [email protected], [email protected]

Subject: Re: Bug#1057080: ibus-mozc: Automatically enables itself on non-Japanese systems

Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2024 14:34:14 +0100

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On Sat, 22 Jun 2024 at 09:16, Osamu Aoki <[email protected]> wrote:

> For now, Endless OS should create its customization package which used
> dpkg-divert to disable ibus-mozc's autostart script and provides its own
> per-user input method setting script (or use gnome-initial-setup?).
>

Thanks for the dpkg-divert suggestion. Currently we patch this package to
remove this problematic autostart file but we could avoid that with
dpkg-divert. GNOME Initial Setup is used at first boot to configure the
system language and input method.


> After all, the act of installing all the language support packages is a
> non-typical use case.
>

As noted in this thread, Debian live media does the same – I don't think
this is so non-typical!


> I do understand what ibus-mozc is doing may not be the best technical
> solution but is a reasonable **DE independent solution**.
>
> If you can come up with a new **DE independent** per-user IM setting
> package
>

I don't think such a thing is possible or desirable. Each DE already has
its own way to configure input methods per-user (and system-wide).

Limiting the auto-enabling behaviour to Japanese locales would be an
improvement but consider the case where the system has two different input
methods installed, both of which have this script. Which one should win?

– Will

>

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