[Pkg-phototools-devel] Hugin + Debian - touching base

Sun Sep 6 19:55:37 UTC 2009

Hi Yuv,

On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 02:48:24PM -0400, Yuval Levy wrote:
> Sebastian Harl wrote:
>>> I would like to get to know you; to know the status quo of Hugin and  
>>> related tool in your distribution and your plans for the future.
>>
>> Hrm, not sure what exactly you want to know (about enblend). As of now,
>> the latest release (3.2) is available in testing and unstable (Lenny
>> ships 3.0, while 3.2 is available through backports.org). The package
>> seems to be used quite a bit, while the number of reported users seems
>> to be rising fast (see [popcon]).
>
> I did not know about popcon - When I type enblend and hugin I get very  
> similar numbers. It seems that demand for enblend is coming from Hugin  
> users?

While the current total numbers are quite similar, the curves did not
look similar until very recently. The hugin package strictly depends on
enblend since November 2008, which is, I presume, what caused the "sync"
of the curves. Also, I'd imagine that only very few people use enblend
without hugin. So, yes, I think there is some kind of correlation.

> What are your experiences with 3.2? have you used later CVS checkouts?

To be honest, I haven't used enblend at all recently, since I was busy
with all kinds of other stuff. I think the last time I've used it was
for testing purposes before uploading the package. At that time, I did
not notice any problems. I haven't used any VCS snapshots so far.

> are you aware of Enblend migrating to Hg?

Nope, I wasn't aware of that. I guess, I have to dig into that a bit
further then ;-)

> I am not sure if I understand everything well inside [phototools]. We  
> had some confusion on our side with Hugin-0.7.0 dependent on a  
> CVS-snapshot of Enblend because we (Hugin) really wanted/needed Enfuse  
> and Enblend-Enfuse was not released yet. Shipping Hugin-0.7.0 with  
> Enblend-3.0 is not so good.

I suppose, you're referring to the current state in stable (Lenny),
right? Unfortunately, we could not prevent that situation since no
stable enblend 3.2 was available at the time of the freeze and no new
upstream version was allowed to make it into the release after that.
That's why we made enblend 3.2 available through backports.org as soon
as possible and mentioned that in the README.Debian file shipped with
hugin.

> Add to it that I experienced plenty of errors / memory leaks with 3.2  
> until I had enough and switched to the staging branch on launchpad. In  
> the meantime that branch is history. A couple of weeks ago I pushed hard  
> enough for the developers to come together and join forces.

As mentioned before, I did not encounter any such issues when I tested
the package and I did not receive any bug reports since then. Anyway,
3.2 is not available in any stable release so far and we're gonna have
some time to fix any outstanding issues before the next release
(Squeeze).

>> Currently, the only outstanding issue that has been reported is the
>> embedded version of libvigraimpex. It would be nice to be able to use
>> the packaged, unmodified version at some point in the future (see
>> [bts542258] for details).
>
> yes, this would be nice. I am not enough of a coder to take care of  
> this. I've added it to the Enblend bug tracker, [artifact 2853074]

I might look into that myself when I find some time to do so. I'm
currently about to finish my university studies and I'll have more free
time once that's done ;-)

>> Besides that, I don't really have any special plans for the future
>> besides getting the latest versions into Debian when they are available
>> ;-)
>
> have you tried the latest Hg version? you probably don't need  
> [instructions] - it's much faster on multi-core CPUs; it is much more  
> robust (projects of mine that segfault 3.2 complete like a charm on 4.0  
> pre release); and worth being pushed into unstable already now.

I will have a look at that. Do you think it's in a state that might be
released with Debian already? Else, I guess, I'll upload to experimental
for now.

> The next things I would like to know is how the packages trickle down  
> from Debian to Ubuntu, and try to smooth the way for the next Hugin  
> releases through both of the distributions.

I'm not entirely sure about any details but, in general, Ubuntu
synchronized most of their packages from Debian every once in a while.
enblend can be found in Ubuntu universe and does not seem to have any
maintainers to it, so I guess there's not much we can do to influence
the versions shipped with Ubuntu since it seems to be handled
automatically.

> Specifically, we have Hugin-0.8.0 out now that is a major improvement  
> over 0.7.0 (have you tried the [fast preview]?)

Nope, have not tried that but having a fast preview sounds wonderful :-)

> The features that are scheduled for release (and we'll do individual  
> releases to avoid clogging the pipes as we did with the GSoC2008  
> projects and 0.8.0) are:
> - GPU stitching (now)
> - lens calibration (next)
> - deghosting for enfuse (soon - will likely also be enblend-4.1)
> - new layout model (soon)
> - vigra 1.6 (soon - I know that it would be better to use upstream  
> library, hopefully this will be a step toward it)
>
> That's five Hugin releases, plus Enblend.
>
> So, these are the plans as far as I am concerned.

Sounds like a tight schedule ;-)

> Of course, being a code-monkey and at times also elephant in a
> crystal shop, I can not guarantee that they will happen. I depend on
> the goodwill and work of plenty of volunteers. I estimate the chances
> of getting there as quite high.

Well, it's going to happen, whenever it's ready, I guess - which is a
good thing ;-)

> When I look at [backports] we're still 0.7.0. I have no clue what the  
> policies are at Debian for inclusion in stable and unstable. I would  
> like to help streamline/improve/accelerate the trickling down of newer  
> versions of Hugin/Enblend/Libpano.

Uhm … in a nutshell, this is the life cycle of a package:

 * Packages are uploaded to unstable at some time (mostly random,
   whenever the package maintainer manages to do so).

 * Usually (unless there are serious issues with the package) the
   package automatically migrates to testing after ten days.

 * When the release managers decide to start preparing a new release
   (this used to happen about 1.5 years after the last release, it's an
   ongoing discussion how this is going to be handled in the future),
   testing is frozen, i.e. no "new features" are allowed in.

 * Whenever most of the known serious issues have been straightened out
   (I'm not going into details about that), the frozen testing will
   eventually be marked as (the new) stable.

 * After that, no new packages are allowed into stable, besides fixes
   for critical and security related issues.

 * To fill the gap between stable ("rock solid" software) and testing /
   unstable (new versions of software), there are services like
   backports.org that make new versions available to users of stable.

Does that give you an idea how things work? You'll find much more
detailed information on the web …

> My personal interest is Ubuntu (easier for monkeys like me) and I  
> started a [PPA] there, which is currently empty. I do not know the  
> details of the relation between Debian versions and Ubuntu versions. Is  
> there any overlap? Or do we have to do the Ubuntu packages separately,  
> even if they use the same distribution system and they come from the  
> same lineage of Linux?

See above.

> You will forgive me that I "use" you as an in-between station to get to  
> Ubuntu.

Well, I don't mind that at all ;-) I guess we can benefit from that as
well.

> I have a last question about the difference between Debian and Ubuntu. I  
> have found Autopano in Ubuntu [Jaunty] but not in Debian. Are you aware  
> of this?

Yes, I'm aware of that. Unfortunately, the SIFT algorithm is patented,
which is why we're not allowed to distribute it in Debian. Ubuntu seems
to have a different policy on issues like that.

If you can provide reliable evidence that there is basically no change
we're going to be sued when shipping it, we might be able to include it
in Debian as well …

Thanks for the detailed information.

Cheers,
Sebastian

-- 
Sebastian "tokkee" Harl +++ GnuPG-ID: 0x8501C7FC +++ http://tokkee.org/

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.         -- Benjamin Franklin

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