Re: GStreamer releases

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

On 8/29/05, Ronald S. Bultje <rbultje ronald bitfreak net> wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 15:15 -0400, Luis Villa wrote:
> > > - a lot of the DVD work Ronald has done was done after 0.8.10.  DVD
> > > support is mentioned in the release notes (I personally have my doubts
> > > if this should be advertised *at all*, given that in my opinion we
> > > shouldn't be promoting patented stuff), and I feel it would be
> > > misleading to state GNOME 2.12 has good DVD support without this release
> > > being part of it.
> >
> > I can nuke that from the release notes if it isn't accurate.
> [..]
> > You know this code base better than we do. :/ You guys are running
> > some automated tests at this point, right? I assume the branch is
> > passing them? Ronald, what are your thoughts?

> So fact: I've received one bug report related to the DVD menus /
> subtitles (from Jan), we pinpointed the problem, it's not fixed, but I
> don't think it'll happen for many DVDs (not any I own). I received
> several success stories, so it appears to work.
> 
> So here's my first guess: if we draw back 0.8.11 from 2.12, people will
> be really pissed off at us (or maybe me) because I've blatantly lied
> about all this cool DVD features that were gonna be in 2.12, "and look,
> still no menus! You suck! Boo!" Drawing back features really isn't just
> something you do in a snap, it has to be a last resort decision, like an
> emergency break.

Right, but (IMHO) we should always err on the side of quality over
features; that's the promise we've made to everyone.
 
> So as for the lack of testing, the good thing is that there haven't been
> all that many changes in the code after the latest 0.8.10 releases. Most
> changes specifically touch DVD playback, and don't affect anything else.
> That's good. This is especially true for GStreamer core. I'm pretty sure
> we can do a blind new release there, I'm pretty nothing will break.

That is very good to hear.

> I know Fedora doesn't care shit about "this patented thingy", but
> several others do. Let's not kid ourselves. Everyone buys DVDs. This
> feature is tremendously important.

Yeah, I agree.

> So, short, yes, it should go in 2.12; we should be prepared for a new
> gst-plugins release when that turns out to be necessary (for 2.12.1 /
> distros / etc.), because there's some new features in there and from
> experience we know that this may break. However, we shouldn't be scared.
> Let's just rock. Users love such features.
> 
> Now, the gotcha: if DVD playback breaks, I cannot fix it. I returned my
> DVD laptop to Fluendo and no longer own a DVD player. Important detail.
> I can and will help fixing it, but I cannot fix it. 

Ouch. I'm really uncomfortable saying in one step 'we should probably
be ready to do another release' and the next breath saying 'not going
to be me'.

> I'll leave the final
> decision of including 0.8.11 in 2.12.0 up to you. My suggestion is a
> 'yes'.

I'm not comfortable shipping it if there is no one on the hook to fix
it. Otherwise, it seems like something I can live with.

Luis