Bug#702762: "More or less" dead upstream

[Bálint Réczey]

2014/1/11 Reinhard Tartler <siretart at gmail.com>:
> On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Bálint Réczey <balint at balintreczey.hu> wrote:
>> I think filing bugs is the best way of
>> starting the removal of libpostproc. There are only a few packages
>> depending on it,
>> thus adding a linitian warning may be overkill:
>> $ apt-cache rdepends libpostproc52
>> libpostproc52
>> Reverse Depends:
>>   libxine2-ffmpeg
>>   libxine1-ffmpeg
>>   xbmc-bin
>>   vlc-nox
>>   transcode
>>   mpv
>>   mplayer2
>>   mplayer-gui
>>   mplayer
>>   mencoder
>>   libpostproc-dev
>>   gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
>>   libgmerlin-avdec1
>>   ffmpeg2theora
>>
>> Regarding the migration libpostproc is missing only from stable, it is present
>> in testing thus every package using it can still migrate and I think it is OK.
>
> I think there may be a misunderstanding here, libpostproc *is* in
> stable, but as part of the libav package. It was phased out after the
> 0.5 release, and I packaged it as standalone. I've packaged it as
> standalone source package because of the longish list of packages that
> use it.
>
> The list of packages you quote above still seems rather long, and many
> of those packages seem very undermaintained to me. Pushing them to
> drop libpostproc may be the right thing to do, but please be aware
> that this may take years. That's why I think a lintian warning may of
> help here.
>
>>> I did not push very hard on this issue because I wanted to see if
>>> there would be any upstream activity and it would make sense to keep
>>> libpostproc anyways. It turns out that the upstream repository
>>> http://git.videolan.org/?p=libpostproc.git  didn't see real functional
>>> development that aren't build fixes for years. Moreover, nobody
>>> stepped up to take over the package. Now 1.5y later, it may be a good
>>> time to phase libpostproc out of debian for good.
>> I think we should discuss the mass bug filing on debian-devel in advance,
>> but otherwise I'm OK with the removal. Would you like to announce the
>> removal?
>
> I'm a bit uncomfortable with discussing that on debian-devel TBH, as I
> don't see any chance we can remove libpostproc anytime soon. The
> current libpostproc package is in testing and is supposely working
> fine. Porting package to libavfilter is going to require upstream
> involvement, which is looking at the list of affected upstreams not
> going to happen soon. I'm really unsure what's the best way to proceed
> from here.
>From the email [1] on the VLC list I had the impression that
libpostproc is broken.
If it is working fine I don't see why it should be dropped and I'll
keep libpostproc
support in XBMC, too.
I have looked into the source more closely and it seems using a very
hidden setting
XBMC users can pass postproc filters to libpostproc thus I can't
replace it with vf_yadif.

So if libpostproc will stay with us could you please upload it to
wheezy-backports to
let me upload xbmc, too?

Cheers,
Balint

[1]https://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/2013-March/092249.html

>
>> I will migrate XBMC to libavfilter when I can find some time for that.
>
> If XBMC needs a deinterlacing fitler, I believe that vf_yadif is one
> of the best fitlers around for this task. I'd say this should be done
> regardless what's happening with libpostproc.
>
> --
> regards,
>     Reinhard