[Ffmpeg-devel] Using ffmpeg libs in an OSS project is a nightmare

[Kenneth Lavrsen]

>
>As far as I understand FFmpeg and MPlayer development, cvs of these 
>project is
>always supposed to be stable. Changes that break certain features should not
>go into cvs and if you notice some bug when you update your snapshot you
>should check the mailinglist archive if this is already known and report it
>otherwise. Then wait a few days until it is fixed and use the fixed snapshot.
>The 10% phase is only when one of the developers makes a mistake that noone
>noticed so far. If there were releases it would be very likely that the
>releases contain these bugs, too.

We are talking API stability here more than code stability.
Noone is talking about giving up using your CVS as today or the daily CVS 
snaps.
Since we cannot count on the API being stable and documented since this 
takes many resources we do the 2nd best - scheduled releases which takes no 
resources to do.

We need baseline releases so between them the plain end user that cannot 
write a line of C. Can hardly install an RPM can download latest ffmpeg 
release and latest project X and get it to work - yes with known bugs with 
will have been resolved in

>In my eyes, Michael, besides being briliant coder, has done a wonderful 
>job in
>maintaing this project so far. If someone does not like the release policy
>then go ahead improve the shared lib support, propose a better abi or
>volunteer in doing the releases. Complaining and waiting for more "grown up
>developers" won't help anything.
>
>Sascha

You already have the volunteer. All we need is a go ahead.

And without a go-ahead I guess we will just have to create "fork" project 
which picks the best CVS snap and give it a release number.
This is basically what the packagers today do but very uncoordinated. All 
we add is a coordination and a sync so all has the same baseline.

If there is a bug - we will simply ask people to  download a CVS snap 
tar.gz just like today.
Motion still works fine with ffmpeg-0.4.8 so I am not too worried with 
bugs. It is the API changes that causes all the trouble.

But I would prefer releasing on the official ffmpeg sourceforge file system.

Kenneth


-- 
Kenneth Lavrsen,
Glostrup, Denmark
kenneth at lavrsen.dk
Home Page - http://www.lavrsen.dk