Bits from the Debian Multimedia Team [RELOADED]

[Bálint Réczey]

2014-10-04 16:20 GMT+02:00 Alessio Treglia <alessio at debian.org>:
> Hi again,
>
> (replying here to both Reinhard and Bálint)
>
> On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 2:27 PM, Reinhard Tartler <siretart at gmail.com> wrote:
>> What I currently read on the wiki page about FFmpeg -> Libav was
>> probably appropriate back then, but now two years later, I don't think
>> its really appropriate.
>
> This is exactly what I was trying to communicate, apparently I haven't
> been clear enough. Sorry about that.
>
> Bálint,
>
>> I think the "Libav or FFmpeg in Jessie" choice is artificial and I don't want to
>> legitimize it by writing about XBMC in a context where it is shown as valid.
>
>> IMO both Libav and FFmpeg should be let to enter Jessie and package
>> maintainers should have the choice of using either of them.
>
> We want neither to talk shit about FFmpeg nor praise Libav, most of us
> simply think that is not appropriate to replace Libav with FFmpeg at
> this stage.
>
> Personally I don't care whether FFmpeg will go down its own path to
> Debian Jessie succesfully or not.
> We (many of us) just answered a question about which one among ffmpeg
> and libav should be the provider for libav* libraries.
> It is a non-binding, non-political opinion on the subject, and likely
> no particular consequences will follow as it's mostly business of the
> security team.
I extended my answer in the original thread.

>
> Presumably we are not going to maintain FFmpeg either way, so if the
> release team is OK with having FFmpeg in Jessie, then it's fine for me
> too.
>
>> I think the current state of XBMC does not show the team in a good light
>> thus I'm not sure if it is a good idea to talk about in Bits.
>
> Could you please elaborate?
I would love to ship XBMC giving the same pleasant experience as
upstream's packages, but the closest thing I can provide in Debian is
stuck in experimental because ffmpeg can't enter testing. Libav works
fine in most cases, but VDPAU acceleration does not work with Libav
10+ and this bug have been reported against XBMC several times.
The next version of XBMC (now Kodi) dropped Libav compatibility code
completely which I don't agree with but it means more work on the
Debian packages if I want to make them work with Libav.

I strongly agree with some of Libav's goals like redesigning the API
to make it safer and cleaning the code, but keeping important features
such as VDPAU acceleration broken for a long time makes the fork less
appealing.

I think this situation is complex enough to not fit bits, maybe kBytes
from the Multimedia Team.

I have added a short paragraph about XBMC, making it as neutral as I could.

Cheers,
Balint

>
>> Given the current FFmpeg/Libav packaging tension, I'm having a hard
>> time to come up with a summary of the current state of affairs. One
>> option would be to say anything, which I would consider better than
>> the current text on the wiki that is two years late.
>
> Sure.
>
>> However, Ideally we would say something about the new
>> features in Libav10 and Libav11.
>
> That would be amazing!
>
>> What's the timeline for sending out the announcement? Alessio, I take
>> it that you are driving this effort. Maybe you can set a tentative
>> deadline when you want to have it sent out?
>
> I'm planning to release it in, say, ~1 week, next Saturday or Sunday.
>