BTW, a debian package of 0.42pre0 will be uploaded soon.
Great! It's good to get the wider testing of users of Debian unstable.
Bad news here: there is a change of the C++ ABI going on in unstable, so uploads of programs using this ABI are blocked until the transition is over.
I haven't followed debian-devel discussion, but I'd be inclined to interpret
The ABI change will not start, before gcc-3.4.4, gcc-4.0.1 and binutils 2.16.1 are released and available on all architectures.
(from http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/06/msg00004.html)
as meaning that the C++ freeze won't start until those package versions are in unstable. (They aren't in unstable when I checked just now.)
It's a bit more explicit further down:
- C++ program maintainers: ... Once packages with the new C++ ABI are uploaded, you must not upload your package until all C++ build dependencies are updated for the new ABI.
I'd guess that no "packages with the new C++ ABI" will be uploaded until those gcc/binutils package versions are in unstable.
That should allow us to get one or more iterations of 0.42pre packagings into unstable before the freeze.
While waiting, we can look for g++-4-related bug reports on our build dependencies, and work on having those fixed so that our dependencies can be in unstable as soon as possible so that future inkscape uploads can be in unstable as soon as possible after the freeze starts. Perhaps post a list of all such bug numbers in this thread.
pjrm.