[Ffmpeg-devel] Re: Advocating periodic releases

[Dana Hudes]

I am willing to give a go at project managing ffmpeg and doing releases. 
Somewhere along the way, I hope to also be able to make Solaris SPARC 
(sorry, I don't have any x86 Solaris systems) packages available. Part 
of the release thing is not only making sure that the thing builds and 
passes its regression tests but I'd really appreciate help on the QA 
side in assessing the adequacy of the tests. I can, I think, get some 
automated code-coverage metrics measuring tools going (if this were 
Perl, I'd know exactly where to go for them but its been a while since I 
did such on C code).

I think we need a separate discussion list for the release / test issues 
so that interested parties are not flooded with discussions of patches. 
I would ask that any developer contributing actual code participate in 
the release discussion somewhat.

As for the vehicle for all this, sourceforge would seem the right place.

Tim Allen wrote:
> Mikhail Teterin wrote:
>>>   I think you fail to understand the difference between the notions 
>>> of a
>>> Project and a Product.
>>
>> I don't see, how this distinction is relevant to my request to have 
>> periodic (semi-)stable releases of ffmpeg available for download.
>>
>>> Cinerella would be a product, just like the Linux kernel is a project
>>
>> Both Cinerella and Linux kernel have releases.
>>
>> Whether ffmpeg is a project or a product, there need to be releases 
>> of it to facilitate porting and to make it easier for applications 
>> (products?) to rely on the already built/installed version instead of 
>> bundling their own.
>
> At the moment there is no serious release management of ffmpeg. The 
> current contributors to ffmpeg have chosen to spend their time on 
> actual development, rather than release management. Since I'm not 
> paying them for their time (and neither are you, unless I'm much 
> mistaken), we have no right to criticise them for how they decide to 
> spend their time.
>
> Now it is certainly true that if someone did decide to perform the job 
> of release management for ffmpeg, they would be doing a profoundly 
> useful service to humanity. I'm not able/willing to do it, so I'm not 
> going to complain about anyone else not doing it either. If you, or 
> anyone else _is_ able/willing to do it, please volunteer your 
> services, you'll have my gratitude.
>
>> Thanks for your time,
>>
>>     -mi
>
> Tim
>