Bug#588240: crashes with latest mplayer from sid

[Norbert Preining]

On Di, 03 Aug 2010, Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> > - your packages do not cooperate with the libs he is shipping
> 
> yes, that's technically infeasible.

Ok.

> > Why did you (maintainer) choose that specific version number:
> > 	2:1.0~rc3++final.dfsg1-1
> > with ++? Only to make sure that the packages at marillat are overridden
> > by packages that suddenly break video playback in many applications?
> 
> no, that was to fix a versioning mistake I did in the past.

Well, but the effect is the same, that everyon who used mplayer 
before from marillat suddenly has a broken system.

> I would propose to change marillat's packages to not replace the system
> libraries. But last time I've asked him that, he rejected that. Another
> option would be to make his packaging providing static libraries only.

Because he provides libs without some functionality *not* torn out
due to licensing reasons. So if he did NOT replace sys libs, the whole
game would be useless, no improvement for users.
(improvement: suddenly some things work that didn't work before, like
strange video formats etc)

> > Why not choose a version number which is below the one of marillat? It
> > would still be the default package to be installed in Debian unless
> > people know what they are doing and adding marillat source. 
> 
> marillat does no longer provide mplayer. he is now focusing on
> mplayer-git, a fork of mplayer.

Well, the package name is still mplayer afais.

> > Or is it about ego, my packages has to be the one that breaks all the
> > system out there???
> 
> I don't think so.

Good to know.

> > Furthermore, you (Reinhard Tartler) said that mplayer is not compatbile
> > with ffmep 0.6, so why does the one from mdebian-multimedia run?
> 
> His old package didn't and his new mplayer-git don't have this
> particular problem because he has always compiled against ffmpeg
> libraries statically. This is not acceptable for Debian for obvious
> reasons.

Why? I compile several of the libs statically into the binaries of xetex
(texlive-binaries) because the libs need some adaption to what is
shipped in Debian (libicu), so what is the problem?

Of course it is not desirable, but there is no inherent problem with that.
If libicu accepts all changes from xetex I will happily reuse system
libicu, otherwise bad luck.

> > You say that "mixing debian-multimedia libs with debians *guarantees*
> > to cause problems", well, up to today I never had these kinds of problems
> > in the last years, so it might be your personal observation, but mine 
> > kind of disagrees with that. Can you please provide reasonable data point
> > beyond shipping a breaking package that supports your ideas?
> 
> I'd suggest that you compare the exported symbols between 'his' and the
> packages that he is replacing for a start.

What does the list of *exported*symbols* have to do with actual breakage?
Typing mplayer foo.flv and seeing a dump or seeing a video is what we
are talking about. 

> > THere is no statistical data, but I would expect that most people in
> > one or the other way use packages from marillat.
> 
> this is sad, yes.

WHY? I strongly disagree. Because there is someone who is doing the big
work of getting things easily accessible for the user that out of
policy reasons cannot enter Debian proper (and I must say sometimes
that is ridiculuous, becuase some items are not accepted due to the
fear of being in contradiction to some legislation in some country somewhere,
while the same code is present in a different package which is since
ages in Debian - at least last year I remember such a case, ffmpeg or so -
don't kill me for details).

We should be *grateful* to Marillat for doing that work!!! ANd I as
a Debian Developer am *really* happy that he is doing that!

Best wishes

Norbert

PS A simple solution would have been adding conflicts against the
packages as provided by marillat ... that would have helped everyone
and kept a working system. And yes, you *can* add conflicts to packages
that are not in Debian proper!

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norbert Preining            preining@{jaist.ac.jp, logic.at, debian.org}
JAIST, Japan                                 TeX Live & Debian Developer
DSA: 0x09C5B094   fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76  A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
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