[Pkg-kde-extras] Bug#807853: k3b: FTBFS with FFmpeg 2.9

[Pino Toscano]

In data venerdì 8 gennaio 2016 21:50:33, Andreas Cadhalpun ha scritto:
> Hi Pino,
> 
> Thanks for your quick reply.
> 
> On 08.01.2016 18:12, Pino Toscano wrote:
> > Yes, I've seen the patch in #807853, and a couple of review requests on
> > KDE's reviewboard.
> 
> Could you please post links to upstream discussion about this or mark
> the bug as forwarded?

I saw these two patches:
https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/122569/
https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/122601/
they refer to the master branch of k3b, but the code in
plugins/decoder/ffmpeg/ is the same in both the 2.0 branch (from where
the 2.0.x releases like the latest 2.0.3a are taken) and master.
Would it be possible for you to check them, and maybe also comment on
the reviewboard?

> > Let me take this opportunity to "reverse the issue": is your upstream
> > aware that the continuous API breaks in each new stable series only
> > waste time on the users' side?
> 
> I sense frustration in these words, but let's get the facts straight:
>  * The last four stable series (2.5.*-2.8.*) didn't break the API.

Possibly, but IIRC only 2.7 was used back in Debian, so what 2.5 and 2.6
did is generally not relevant for me. Before it was libav, yes, but from
a Debian maintainer POV it was "whatever provided libav* libraries".

>  * Adapting to the new APIs is no waste of time, rather maintenance cost,
>    also improving the API using program in the process, as the old APIs
>    were deprecated for a reason.

The ffmpeg decoding plugin in k3b is doing the same job for the latest
6+ years, so at least to me all these API changes look like they brought
nothing. And well, changing the code to newer APIs that don't bring
anything new to what was already done is a cost that, as developer, I'd
rather not pay.

> And yes, the upstream developers are aware of that maintenance cost,
> I made sure of that. Please go and read the discussion upstream [1][2].
> And I can understand your frustration, after all, I'm the one who wrote
> patches for all affected Debian packages.

Thank you for that, at least should help bringing upstream back to the
real world, where there are developers using older distros (e.g. LTS
ones)...

> > Just look at the affected code in k3b,
> > plugins/decoder/ffmpeg/k3bffmpegwrapper.cpp: many defines and ifdef's,
> > just to make the very same code do the very same job, nothing less and
> > nothing more.
> 
> I'm well aware how this file looks, as I wrote a patch for it.
> And most of these ifdef's could just be removed, unless you need to
> build this in ancient environments...

There is not an active k3b upstream, so I'm afraid the new ffmpeg
support code should be as much as conservative as possible (that is,
support the new version but keep supporting older ones as done now).

Thanks,
-- 
Pino Toscano
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 811 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-kde-extras/attachments/20160109/1741a272/attachment.sig>