Amarok 2.2 feature freeze exception

Missing information about what the upstream changes are, their risks and benefits.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess

Upgrading to version 2.2 would fix bug #409407 and bug #335578. With amarok 2.1.1 lyrics are no longer displayed and covers are not fetched from amazon. I think the risk would be small, because even beta1 works very good for me and probably 2.2 will be released in time.

It's a large list of new features and UI changes (we are in UI freeze, too, now), which could potentially introduce new bugs again. How much has this been tested in a karmic environment by the community?

Would it be adequate to backport the two major bug fixes? E. g. bug 409407 looks like an one-liner patch to fix an URL.

How does 2.1.1 work in terms of stability and usability compared to 2.2? Does 2.2 fix release goals of Karmic which aren't in 2.1.1?

(upstream here)

Yes Amarok 2.2 introduces a lot of new features. However some of them are essential features for a lot of users. For example audio CD support and support for universal mass storage devices or playlist sorting and shuffeling.

Jaunty shipped Amarok 2.0.2 which was lacking a lot of features and we are still getting flack for it and a ton of bug reports which are all fixed in 2.2. Shipping 2.1.1 in Karmic would mean another 6 months of angry users for upstream and Kubuntu. It'd be a pity if we have to wait another 6 months to make up for 2.0

WRT stability and bugs 2.2 beta 1 is probably better already than 2.1. We will tag beta 2 on Monday and final release on 28th. Especially collection scanning and management has seen a lot of important fixes.

Yes, bug 409407 would only need improvement for an existing patch. For bug #335578 we would have to change a major feature of amarok, I guess that this is not really a good idea, if 2.2 is ready to use.

A package for testing is in the backports beta PPA: https://edge.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+archive/beta

Regarding stability in new amarok 2.2: I have been using the 2.1.80 beta for 2.2 since release. It's stable.

I see no issue with shipping 2.2 for Karmic, based on the current beta and the additional fixes to playlist, media devices, and album covers, which were sorely missed (and/or broken) in earlier 2.1.X releases.

Right, so this seems to have been well-tested. I'm fine with relying on the Kubuntu community's judgement here, approved.

How does that impact Kubuntu/KDE upstream documentation, with help/screenshots, etc.? Is that something the doc team should be notified about?

uploaded