Bug#729203: [FFmpeg-devel] Reintroducing FFmpeg to Debian

[Andreas Cadhalpun]

Hi Reinhard,

On 28.07.2014 02:05, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Andreas Cadhalpun
> <andreas.cadhalpun at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>   * Does it make sense for me to switch my package?
>>     The rule of thumb is, if your upstream uses FFmpeg for development
>>     you probably want to switch to using it, too.
>
> In [1], Moritz from the security team clearly stated that he is more
> than uncomfortable with having more than one copy of libavcodec in
> debian/testing.

I discussed this with Moritz in the ITP bug. Moritz ended this 
discussion [a], and as I wasn't convinced by his arguments, I continued 
my work. If in the end really only one copy is allowed in the next 
stable release, I think it should be FFmpeg.

> In consequence this means that any package that builds
> against the ffmpeg packages currently in NEW won't make it into
> testing either. I am therefore surprised about the given answer to the
> question above.

It remains to be seen, what the release team prefers: frustrated users 
and developers or both forks in jessie.

> I think it would be best if ftp-master left the ffmpeg package in NEW
> until an answer to this problem has been found.

I fail to see how this would help anyone, it only makes testing the 
package more difficult. Whether or not the package is acceptable for the 
next stable release is not to be decided by the ftp-masters, but rather 
by the release team.

> [1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/02/msg00668.html
>
>> The FFmpeg version currently in NEW has been there for more than
>> 2 months and is thus outdated. If you want to test the current
>> packages, you can build them from the repository on Alioth [17]
>> (e.g. using git-buildpackage).
>>
>> Furthermore, we'd like to move the FFmpeg packaging under the umbrella
>> of the pkg-multimedia team, because this would facilitate future FFmpeg
>> transitions.
>
> I am curious why this is your first email about this matter to
> pkg-multimedia, and why do you write this email only now?

In the last discussion on debian-devel it was suggested to get the 
FFmpeg packages into experimental first [b], before further discussion, 
so I tried to achieve that.

As the package has been in NEW for a rather long time and the freeze is 
getting closer, sending this mail now seemed appropriate.

> Moreover, I am curious why I haven't seen you working on libavcodec
> bugs in Debian before,

It would be great if I could fix every bug in Debian, but unfortunately 
my time is limited. Therefore, when I encounter a problem that cannot 
immediately be fixed, I try to work around it. The workaround for 
practically all problems I had with the Libav packages in Debian could 
be solved by installing FFmpeg binaries from third parties. Therefore I 
finally decided to work on a more sustainable solution, i.e. a FFmpeg 
package in Debian.

> and why do you believe you can do a better job
> with the ffmpeg package currently on NEW?

It is a lot more likely that I work on fixing a bug that affects me, if 
there is no easy workaround.

Best regards,
Andreas


a: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=729203#568
b: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/02/msg00714.html