[FFmpeg-devel] FFmpeg 7.0 blocking issues

[Sebastian Ramacher]

On 2024-03-02 20:39:08 -0500, Sean McGovern wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 2, 2024, 18:19 Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc>
> wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 12:06:14AM +0100, Sebastian Ramacher wrote:
> > > On 2024-03-02 23:55:38 +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 08:22:41PM +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > > > > Hi all
> > > > >
> > > > > As it was a little difficult for me to not loose track of what is
> > > > > blocking a release. I suggest that for all release blocking issues
> > > > > open a ticket and set Blocking to 7.0
> > > > > that way this:
> > > > > https://trac.ffmpeg.org/query?blocking=~7.0
> > > > >
> > > > > or for the ones not closed:
> > > > >
> > https://trac.ffmpeg.org/query?status=new&status=open&status=reopened&blocking=~7.0
> > > > >
> > > > > will list all blocking issues
> > > > >
> > > > > Ive added one, for testing that, i intend to add more if i see
> > something
> > > > >
> > > > > What is blocking? (IMHO)
> > > > > * regressions (unless its non possible to fix before release)
> > > > > * crashes
> > > > > * security issues
> > > > > * data loss
> > > > > * privacy issues
> > > > > * anything the commuity agrees should be in the release
> > > >
> > > > We still have 3 blocking issues on trac
> > > >
> > > > do people want me to wait or ignore them and branch ?
> > > > Iam not sure when the exact deadline is but if we keep waiting
> > > > we will not get into ubuntu 24.04 LTS
> > >
> > > 24.04 is past feature freeze, so it's too late for that.
> >
> > we should aim earlier in the future then.
> >
> >
> 
> LTS is only every 2 years, yes?

Yes

> How do we make sure this doesn't happen in 2026? How much of a gap is there
> between feature freeze and release?

Not involved in Ubuntu, so that's from past experience: feature
freeze is usually about two months before the release.

So here's the catch: Debian's timeline also needs to be taken into
account. If the ffmpeg release does not involve the removal of deprecated API and
a SONAME bump, then the time from ffmpeg to release to upload to Debian
unstable and then import in Ubuntu is short. In this case, I am sure
that I could convince Ubuntu maintainers to import it even during
feature freeze.

But with SONAME bumps and changes in the API, it takes a lot more time
to work through the high number of ffmpeg reverse dependencies. In that
case, plan a release at least 6 months before an Ubuntu LTS release.

We usually have to rely on upstream maintainers to adopt to the
changes and that take times. Many moons ago Anton helped with providing
patches, but for the last couple of API changes it took some months from
"dear maintainer, here is ffmpeg X for testing, please fix the build of
your package" to actually doing all uploads and rebuilds. For example,
the transition to ffmpeg 6.0 was started in July 2023 and was done in
December 2023.

Cheers
-- 
Sebastian Ramacher