Re: mplayer, the time has come

[A Mennucc <mennucc1@debian.org>]

MJ Ray wrote:

Andrea Mennucc wrote:
  

I have uploaded a new version of the 'mplayer' package for Debian,
namely version 1.0pre6-1
    

I have reviewed this package, but I've not tried building it.
Here are my first comments, split under your headings.

  

--- HISTORY and CURRENT STATUS=20
    

The README.Debian refers to diffs on a site tonelli.sns.it but
I couldn't find them.

Would running the cvs-changelog and storing the output help to
comply with the letter as well as spirit of the GPL?

debianizer - isn't there a debian/rules way to do this now?

  

no way at all

suppose that I do this:
$ tar xjf MPlayer-1.0pre6.tar.bz2
$ mv MPlayer-1.0pre6  mplayer-1.0pre6
$ tar czf mplayer_1.0pre6.orig.tar.gz

at this point I am dead: the file mplayer_1.0pre6.orig.tar.gz will contain DeCSS code, and nothing in debian/rules can delete this code from mplayer_1.0pre6.orig.tar.gz

libmpcodecs - missing copyright or are these all but one
mplayer creations?

  

they are mplayer creations (at the best of my knowledge)

TOOLS - all of this is deleted in response to a reply about
one file, or do they really intend them all to be non-free?

  

when I looked in it 2 years ago, I saw that many files did not have proper copyright statements in them. Since I am not packaging anything from TOOLS, I took the radical step to delete them

debian/scripts/win32codecs.sh - does this depend on non-free
software?

  

nope

it will download and install codecs that are non-free; but it is the user choice (and responsibility) to do that. This is no different than what libdvdread3 proposed wrt decss librari

--- POPULAR SUPPORT
    

While it's nice to see that developers are so keen for mplayer
to be worked on, I hope that someone is directing them towards
the historical record and the work which still needs to be done.
I only saw it happen in one of the cited threads.

I think that explaining this to everyone is one of the main
challenges for the mplayer package maintainers and you should add
a bit more about it to README.Debian, mentioning investigation_0.90
(does that get included in the /usr/share/doc?)

  

investigation_0.90 is outdated: after 0.90 the upstream authors did their own investigation and prepared the 'Copyright' file

--- HISTORY
    

Is it really necessary to fan dead flames by calling them such
in the README.Debian? Let bygones be bygones?

  

you sure are right

a.