Comment 39 for bug 105458

Hi, Paul.

(I'm CC'ing pkg-multimedia-maintainers, as there are many people there
interested in handbrake---and they have done a lot to help me getting
handbrake in shape in Debian).

On Feb 03 2013, Paul Gevers wrote:
> On 02-02-13 12:31, Rogério Theodoro de Brito wrote:
> > The only reason why it was uploaded to experimental is that we didn't want
> > to disrupt with Debian's freeze for the release of wheezy.
>
> Ok, understood. Does this mean that a sync request for Ubuntu is "safe".

Yes, it is. Just be sure to make it clear to the users (perhaps updating the
package's long description) that the package does not have the two features
that I cited due to sad licensing reasons.

Of course, those that only use things will curse and moan, but they don't
know how it is to get these things straight.

> > Just for the record, the package is with reduced functionality, due to
> > license reasons:
>
> Understood, but as Ubuntu follows Debian if nobody put in the time to do
> something different, I think that is 100% acceptable.

OK, great.

> > Any kind of help is mostly appreciated, especially when talking to upstream
> > and:
>
> > This is not a package that is so trivial to make available on a distribution
> > and I have spent many weeks trying to get it to a point where it was able to
> > be included in Debian.
>
> I am currently working on getting an other project (openmotif) in shape
> for Debian. After that I might have the time to help if it is then still
> needed.

Help is surely wanted. I am more or less stagnated with this, because I have
not been able to put the necessary time to talk with upstream.

Convincing them to cut a new stable release would be superb, as:

1 - They have some important features there (e.g., bob deinterlacing, a lot
    of work fixing subtitles etc).

*and*

2 - It would make packaging significantly easier, as they are churning out
    new patches to third-party libraries that we already have in Debian (but
    not necessarity in patched form), and it would take coordination with
    maintainers of other packages, so that we all have compatible stuff.

From handbrake's point of view, it is certainly the faster route to continue
the development patching the libraries that they need (and bundle such
libraries), but it is a major burden for distributions that want to have
handbrake available in their repositories.

More frequent releases from their part would be so much appreciated.

Regards,

--
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 4096R/BCFCAAAA
http://rb.doesntexist.org/blog : Projects : https://github.com/rbrito/
DebianQA: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=rbrito%40ime.usp.br