Re: GStreamer regression analysis [was: GNOME and GStreamer]

[Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <uraeus linuxrising org>]

On Mon, 2006-01-16 at 12:36 -0700, Elijah Newren wrote:
> On 1/16/06, Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <uraeus linuxrising org> wrote:
> > Hi Luis,
> > You make some valid arguments, but here is my take on it.
> >
> > GStreamer 0.10 do have feature equivalence to 0.8 in terms of the free
> > formats today. There are a few fixes that is needed in Totem still as
> > listed by Ronald, but all in all these are minor issues considering we
> > have as a paid developer (Tim) working on this.
> >
> > The question is about the non-free stuff. For common formats like
> > Quicktime, AVI, ASF/WMV, MPEG2, MPEG4 and Real. We will be as good or
> > better than 0.8 by the time of 2.14. The same goes for re-enabling
> > subtitle support. This is on Tim's todo list too.
> 
> I seem to be getting conflicting answers about the subtitle thing. 
> Tim has previously said he'd have it fixed by 2.14 but also said in
> the same email that:
> "The two issues that require a bit more than just a few fixes in 0.10
> are:
>  - DVD playback
>  - stream selection/multiple languages/subtitles
> <snip>
> There are plans to fix stream selection and subtitles, but I don't know
> when that will be."
> 
> I thought Tim said that he probably wouldn't be able to complete
> subtitle support by 2.14?

So we have placed the primary responsibility on this on Tim's should (we
in this case being Fluendo) as he is the person we have committed to
working on pure community stuff. That said there are of course many
areas where our internal development work happens to coincide with the
needs of the community. In this case Jan (thaytan) is working on our
internal DVD player project and will also be working on these issues.
What we unfortunately haven't been able to set in stone is when these
two issues (stream selection and subtitles) make it to the top of Jan's
todo list or if it will make it to the top of Tim's first. Or God forbid
someone in the community gets to them before we do. We do however feel
quite confident that between Tim and Jan we will get these issues
tackled in time for 2.14. 

> > For weird stuff like some video game formats we will have a regression
> > when 2.14 comes out unless someone steps up to try to fix it.
> >
> > For DVD playback there will probably be a regression, but here I have to
> > say the release team can blame nobody but themselves. Thomas warned you
> > against proclaiming DVD support with the previous GNOME release and you
> > did it anyway.
> 
> I think Thomas mentioned this too in this thread.  You two are
> probably right and have a better memory than me, so I went off to find
> it.  I had a hard time, though, could you point me to it in the
> archives?  What I found was
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2005-August/msg00286.html,
> which is similar but comes across differently than what you two are
> saying now.

In my memory and I might be wrong this was also discussed a lot of IRC,
where things where spelled out  more clearly.

> > Ronald who promised to work on making sure DVD support
> > would continue to work hasn't done a rats ass of effort in regards to
> 
> My understanding was quite the opposite -- that Ronald flat out said
> he couldn't and wouldn't do that.  Based off the last paragraph of
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2005-August/msg00293.html
> anyway.

Yes, I might have misrepresented Ronald's promises here. My clear
recalling of the situation was that Ronald in his eagerness to get DVD
support had made promises in this direction (on IRC), but I might very
well be mistaken and apologize to Ronald if that is the case.

> > DVD in 0.10 even though he even at the time of the last GNOME release
> > should have known that 0.10 was close on the horizon and that it was
> > targeted towards 2.14.
> 
> 
> > If the release team want to save some face on the issue of DVD playback
> 
> *sigh* This really just looks like a product of the fact that there
> have been several other heated emails in this thread, so I really
> don't blame you at all Christian.  But, this just seems to be a
> convenient time to ask everyone involved if we could all calm down. 
> Please?

Ok, well my suggestion is this. We continue working towards 0.10 in
2.14. Somewhere closer to the 2.14 release date the release team assess
the situation and either decide to go with the 0.10 versions we have
been working on or stick with the same set of packages shipped with
2.12.

Christian