[FFmpeg-devel] FFmpeg 7.0 blocking issues

[Sebastian Ramacher]

On 2024-06-04 09:31:38 +0300, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> 
> 
> Le 4 juin 2024 00:41:03 GMT+03:00, James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com> a écrit :
> >Well, no. Breakages are expected when you remove API. The real question is why so many projects wait until the old API is gone to migrate. What we removed in 7.0 has had its replacement in place for a couple years, since 5.1.
> 
> Because nobody cares to fix it until it breaks.
> 
> Before that it takes a long time for the breakage to be visible since most down-stream projects get FFmpeg as a pinned vendored release and/or from stable Linux distros.
> 
> And then you have projects that are dead or in a never-ending release cycle due to their own reasons (VLC...), holding back any stable release source update.

vlc is in a state where it cannot keep up with the changes in its
dependencies from a packagers viewpoint. If there weren't changes in the
git repository, I would almost say that the project is dead. The last
changes I made to the vlc package in Debian are all disabling features
(libplacebo, hardware decoding, ...). The recent changes in ffmpeg may
put the final nail into the coffin and we need to start looking at its
removal [1].

Best
Sebastian

[1] I don't usually like to threaten removal, but there is a limit of
what volunteer package maintainers can handle.
-- 
Sebastian Ramacher