Bug#729203: CTTE and reasonable solutions

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>]

On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 12:48:45PM -0500, Antoine Beaupré wrote:
> On 2014-02-03 12:18:45, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > Can you clarify whether you are sincerely asking for clarification, or 
> > whether that would be pointless since you've anyway already decided that 
> > everything I write are "flames" and anything I'll answer you'll only use 
> > for further attacks against me?
> 
> It is interesting that you feel specifically targeted when I mention
> flames whereas I haven't specifically mentionned you were the source of
> the heat. There were numerous messages in this bug report so far and a
> number of them have been out of line.
> 
> I would prefer if you would assume I was asking in good faith, in
> general.

You used "flames" in an email directly answering to me, and in a 
sentence where you told someone to go ahead without even waiting
for the clarification you just asked from me.

You should re-read how that sounded to me.

> So yes, I am genuinely asking for clarification.

First of all, your "The library names of ffmpeg and libav now seem 
perfectly orthogonal" is AFAIK not completely true, e.g. libswscale 
still seems to have the same soname in both projects. So you might
end up mixing libav and ffmpeg libraries, and I wouldn't be sure
that this would work smoothly in all cases.

And if it would be true, then something like the suggested
"apt-get install ffmpeg" would simply not do at all what was
implied it would do.

Let me use VLC as example:

VLC (maintained by the same Debian multimedia maintainers as libav)
is using the libav libraries, and therefore depends on them.

When all libav libraries used by VLC have sonames different from the 
sonames of the ffmpeg libraries, then VLC will always use the libav 
libraries and never use any ffmpeg libraries at all.

If all you expect to happen after "apt-get install ffmpeg" is that
there is an ffmpeg binary that is using the ffmpeg libraries, then
this might be doable.

But if someone wants, as Lorenzo suggested, an "apt-get install ffmpeg" 
to magically switch all applications like VLC from using libav to 
ffmpeg, then one of the requirements for that would clearly be that
there would have to be two versions of all binaries and libraries
using libav/ffmpeg in the archive - one compiled with libav, and
one compiled with ffmpeg.

That would be technically insane, and politically impossible unless
CTTE (or a GR) would override the likely veto from the Debian multimedia 
maintainers for doing that in any of the packages they maintain.

> A.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed