Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
Christian Perrier bubu...@debian.org writes: Just drop that blender thing and announce this loudly enough, preferrably by coordinating with other distro maintainers. That will eventually trigger a fork from people who have a more collaborative way of thinking. This coordination would probably best be done via URL:http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/distributions the Freedesktop Distributions collaboration forum. -- \ “[W]hoever is able to make you absurd is able to make you | `\unjust.” —Voltaire | _o__) | Ben Finney pgpueMipl1kGF.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
Zitat von Christian Perrier bubu...@debian.org: Quoting Cyril Brulebois (k...@debian.org): 4) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19895 Patch to add support for system-wide FTGL. I kind of get flamed for thinking about using something else than what blender provides. And who cares about shared libraries anyway, they are dangerous. If you want to have a good idea of what blender folks think about being distributed, you want to read that thread. That one shows the problem clearly enough. Blender folks are not interested in using system-wide libs *at all*. They apparently prefer using their own private (and buggySam made the point very clear) version of a library, on the vague assumption that, as libraries change their API without warning, they're bad. I'm anything but a specialist in this area, but my understanding is that this is what sonames are about..:-). Anyway, in 2009, such reasoning isawfully flawed. Just drop that blender thing and announce this loudly enough, preferrably by coordinating with other distro maintainers. That will eventually trigger a fork from people who have a more collaborative way of thinking. After all, to my understanding, this blender stuff is kinda widely used in 3D modelling, right? I read that discussion in a different tone as it mostly refers to the FTGL thing. They made changes to the library that are needed and blender would not work correctly without those. The patch doesn't ensure that the system version of that library includes those changes, it doesn't even check for known good versions. This was the main complaint especially since there is no release of FTGL with those changes, yet! So they cannot expect for everyone (and there are other distributions, too) to use _unreleased_ versions of a library (release candidates are not a release). Together, these are valid points for linking a private copy that was tested against. They didn't say anything against having to update that copy. Additionally, not all upstream library developers are aware of how SONAMEs are to be handled (and maybe they got burned by this before). Maybe because libtool's description of SONAMEs is way to complicated (what insane person wrote this?) and limited, and because other popular systems don't support this. After all, users only see bugs in the frontend, not in the libraries behind it. And there are lots of other projects, too, that include private copies of libraries (e.g. mplayer). This was even the proposed way for some GNU stuff some time ago! HS -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Approaching non-integratable software, was: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
[ moving discussion to -project. Please follow up on -devel if you are contributing to the technical discussion and -project for the project wide parts ] Cyril Brulebois k...@debian.org writes: It's been a while and I'm now really wondering what to do with Blender. So that everyone can understand, I'm going to try and sum up what I'm facing. It seems to me that blender is not unique in this regard. There is more software than just blender that prefers to not be integrated into a distribution properly, but rather prefers to retain exact control of (external) libraries that are being included into their source and binaries. Another characteristic is that they focus on binary redistribution, and frown upon users that grab the source and compile themselves. blender is surely not alone. Other prominent, yet unpackaged pieces of software would be handbrake [1], or XBMC[2]. For handbrake the solution so far has been to not package it at all [3], xbmc is having a hard time working on the source to use system libraries. I think it would be sad to not include such packages at all. Knowing proper integration into Debian as distribution is not going to work, how about integrating them as add-on software? I imagine the following approach: - software gets installed into /opt, so that file conflicts are less likely and the software status is visible to the users - packages go to an special section of the archive extra. That section would be similar to contrib: autobuilt, PTS and BTS coverage, no security support . - package can easily be moved to main after it has matured to use system libraries. In some ways, this extra repository can be seen as staging or preview repository. We wouldn't need to provide the tedious and laboratory QA tasks concerning security and integration efforts, but could still provide our users with such software. Footnotes: [1] http://handbrake.fr [2] http://www.xbmc.org/wiki/?title=XBMC_for_Linux_port_project [3] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=456165 -- Gruesse/greetings, Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
also sprach Cyril Brulebois k...@debian.org [2009.08.02.2130 +0200]: Before going deeper into it, I have to say I've been trying to resist the urge of going public with it, and coping with my duties as much as I could. But it's just too much now. Members of the French Cabal (which of course doesn't exist) can tell you how I've been made *angry* about the current state of that piece of “free software”. As I understand it, upstream is uncooperative, and others have already hinted at distributi...@freedesktop, which I second. Someone has also mentioned vcs-pkg, which is why I'd like to take the opportunity to clarify its goal: Without doubt, upstream should be the place where cross-distro integration happens. However, if upstream is not interested, then the idea of vcs-pkg is to have a repo used by all distros, which is suitable for everyone. It doesn't matter where this repo will be hosted, but I think in the long run, vcs-pkg.org or maybe distrodev.org should have storage for those. vcs-pkg.org is on alioth, but non-Debian people might not like being -guests. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madd...@d.o Related projects: : :' : proud Debian developer http://debiansystem.info `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduckhttp://vcs-pkg.org `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems a friend is someone with whom you can dare to be yourself digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/)
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
Hola martin f krafft! El 03/08/2009 a las 10:48 escribiste: Without doubt, upstream should be the place where cross-distro integration happens. However, if upstream is not interested, then the idea of vcs-pkg is to have a repo used by all distros, which is suitable for everyone. It doesn't matter where this repo will be hosted, but I think in the long run, vcs-pkg.org or maybe distrodev.org should have storage for those. vcs-pkg.org is on alioth, but non-Debian people might not like being -guests. distrodev.org seems to have died sometime around 2007, do you know if there is any replacement for this? -- recursividad 95, 154, 156, 201, 224, 293 -- El Lenguaje de Programacion C, pag. 293 (Kernighan Ritchie) Saludos /\/\ /\ `/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
o, so people noticed this discussion and brought it up on #blendercoders, where I just had a tiny chat. It looks like they agreed that the ffmpeg situation is quite unfortunate (that's the most problematic external embedded library we both could think of), but there are some technical stuff that kind-of justifies that (testing and debugging under Windows seems to be uneasy because of ffmpeg's policy/compiler support). From a security point of view, it was reaffirmed that it really isn't the priority, but patches might be considered as time permits. I guess that's where having some cross-distro effort would help sharing patches pending their possible inclusion upstream, and I might set this up (I already have a few persons from various distributions in head). Bottom-line: provided a solution to the ffmpeg issue is found, I might be feasible to keep on maintaining it. I guess I'm just going to move from 2.49 to 2.49a for the time being, and possibly set up some autobuilders to help find build issues early, thus sustaining the upstream effort. Thanks all for your feedback. Mraw, KiBi. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
also sprach Maximiliano Curia m...@debian.org [2009.08.03.1529 +0200]: distrodev.org seems to have died sometime around 2007, do you know if there is any replacement for this? No, but maybe we can revive it? Would you write to the domain owner? -- .''`. martin f. krafft madd...@d.o Related projects: : :' : proud Debian developer http://debiansystem.info `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduckhttp://vcs-pkg.org `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems for her, the dashed lines on the freeway were like grains of sand slipping, through an hour glass, ticking away the seconds, the minutes, and the hours of her life. if she got home a few minutes early on any given afternoon, it gave her a thrill as if she had stolen a little something back from death. -- mc 900 ft jesus (http://www.theendoftheworld.org/900/spider1.shtml) digital_signature_gpg.asc Description: Digital signature (see http://martin-krafft.net/gpg/)
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 9:07 PM, martin f krafftmadd...@debian.org wrote: No, but maybe we can revive it? Would you write to the domain owner? It is now a spam site so that may be costly or impossible. -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
Quoting Cyril Brulebois (k...@debian.org): So: what should I do? I'm thinking about orphaning the package as a first step, and if nobody takes care of it as much as it is needed, just remove it from the distribution. Packaging would still be available in a git repository, so if someone sometime picks it up, it should be quite easy not to start from scratch again. I would personnally ask for it to be removed from the archive (assuming that's easily feasible witouht breakign anything else). A non-cooperative upstream wrt distribution and integration is a no-no and you'll waste too much valuable time in maintaining that package. Of course, being the arse that I am, I would *also* craft a mail to upstream mailing lists with a careful explanation about the reasons leading to the package being abandoned. Something like Debian stops distributing Blender! as cooperation is impossible to make it fit within a distro. Coordinating this with Ubuntu would even have more power... signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
Hola Cyril Brulebois! El 01/08/2009 a las 22:40 escribiste: So: what should I do? I'm thinking about orphaning the package as a first step, and if nobody takes care of it as much as it is needed, just remove it from the distribution. Packaging would still be available in a git repository, so if someone sometime picks it up, it should be quite easy not to start from scratch again. Given the points you listed before, its understandable if you prefer to dedicate your time to any other activity and orphan blender. Although, it might be interesting to work together with the maintainers of other distros to maintain a set of common patches to improve the integration of blender and linux distros. I think that the project http://vcs-pkg.org/ could fit nicelly in this case, that is, if you still want to spend your time with blender, of course. -- UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity. -- Dennis Ritchie Saludos /\/\ /\ `/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
(I hope a single reply will also address Paul's and Christian's questions.) Maximiliano Curia m...@debian.org (02/08/2009): Hola Cyril Brulebois! Hola! (KiBi or Cyril would be sufficient. ;)) Given the points you listed before, its understandable if you prefer to dedicate your time to any other activity and orphan blender. Although, it might be interesting to work together with the maintainers of other distros to maintain a set of common patches to improve the integration of blender and linux distros. Sure. Thanks to the “whohas” utility Paul kindly pointed me to, I've just looked at what other distros do. A very quick summary can be found below. In order to answer more deeply to your point, see the 6th item below. I think that the project http://vcs-pkg.org/ could fit nicelly in this case, that is, if you still want to spend your time with blender, of course. Thought of that back then, indeed. Before going deeper into it, I have to say I've been trying to resist the urge of going public with it, and coping with my duties as much as I could. But it's just too much now. Members of the French Cabal (which of course doesn't exist) can tell you how I've been made *angry* about the current state of that piece of “free software”. Blender status across distributions: Following Paul's advice, gave “whohas blender” a try. The following comments are based on what I saw by following the links. Please note the one I'm most familiar with is Ubuntu through the diff that appears on the PTS and patches that are sent to the maintainer/BTS, so I might be missing obvious things or misunderstanding how that works. Ubuntu: --- The package comes from Debian with some tweaks for python 2.6 or tweaking for some build-dependencies (header location, etc.). Fedora (F11): - They strip some libraries too: | pushd extern | #Removed because of ip | rm -rf ffmpeg libmp3lame x264 xvidcore | #Removed because we can expect to use system one | rm -rf fftw glew libopenjpeg ode qhull make verse | #Will have to be removed later: bFTGL Arch Linux: --- They seem to download builds from: http://video.blendertestbuilds.de/download.blender.org/release/ and tweak some files. Granted, that's a binary distribution. OpenSUSE: - I could only see the contents of the package, one can notice something I forgot to mention: /usr/lib/blender/.blender/** Indeed, people are expected to unpack blender in home directory and run it there, with all of libraries, data, scripts, etc. in the .blender folder. Last time I checked, it looked like the next release should be able to handle several search paths, though. One can have a look at the symlink dance in the /usr/bin/blender script on Debian, which is a wrapper around /usr/bin/blender-bin for this very reason. FreeBSD: They seem to have the same kind of patches as Debian has, make it possible to use system-wide libraries. Gentoo: --- They seem to build without tweaking anything related to embedded libraries. My (very own) experience with sending patches upstream: === Again, I didn't follow very closely what happened last months, but I've been asked to report how my bugs were received. Let's look. 1) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19383 Asking for pointers to implement HPC-friendly option. No answer. 2) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19825 Various build-related remarks. Bottom-line: until everyone has that version of scons, use an old one. (Not quite they do for embedded libraries, but oh well.) 3) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19894 Compiler warnings, valid bug, no answer on the list, but fix committed in svn. (I used to follow blender using git-svn, and saw my name there.) 4) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19895 Patch to add support for system-wide FTGL. I kind of get flamed for thinking about using something else than what blender provides. And who cares about shared libraries anyway, they are dangerous. If you want to have a good idea of what blender folks think about being distributed, you want to read that thread. 5) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19900 Tiny question about syntax warning/error. IIRC Debian was frozen, and I was looking for a minimal patch instead of grabbing the whole new file in svn, or trying to craft a possibly-broken patch. No answer here, but got an answer in private by the author, though. 6) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19906 My favorite one. Where to discuss possible security issues? No answer at all. Back then, I thought about setting up a cross-distro effort, but well, is it really worth it? 7) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19931 Not a thread I started, but Fedora folks wanting to get some feedback about a Debian patch for a
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
Quoting Cyril Brulebois (k...@debian.org): 4) http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.blender.devel/19895 Patch to add support for system-wide FTGL. I kind of get flamed for thinking about using something else than what blender provides. And who cares about shared libraries anyway, they are dangerous. If you want to have a good idea of what blender folks think about being distributed, you want to read that thread. That one shows the problem clearly enough. Blender folks are not interested in using system-wide libs *at all*. They apparently prefer using their own private (and buggySam made the point very clear) version of a library, on the vague assumption that, as libraries change their API without warning, they're bad. I'm anything but a specialist in this area, but my understanding is that this is what sonames are about..:-). Anyway, in 2009, such reasoning isawfully flawed. Just drop that blender thing and announce this loudly enough, preferrably by coordinating with other distro maintainers. That will eventually trigger a fork from people who have a more collaborative way of thinking. After all, to my understanding, this blender stuff is kinda widely used in 3D modelling, right? signature.asc Description: Digital signature
What to do with (packages like) Blender?
Hi folks. It's been a while and I'm now really wondering what to do with Blender. So that everyone can understand, I'm going to try and sum up what I'm facing. Please note it's not intended to be a rant, rather a summary of what I've to deal with. * Upstream doesn't really care about being distributed. The philosophy is rather unzip and run. And by trying to distribute it, one might disable or even break some features (see below), which upstream doesn't like. * Similarly, when it comes to Release Candidates, the main idea is to get builds for every platform, meaning that between the first build and any other build, many patches get committed to fix various FTBFSes on Windows, Linux, and OS X (and even more?) platforms. No tag, people are supposed to use trunk when they see fit to give it a try. And what really matters is the availability of binaries. * Upstream doesn't really care about security. For example, there is a long standing patch to prevent using predictable filenames in /tmp (by moving the temporary directory to something like ~/.blender/tmp). Fortunately, other distributors seemed to care about sharing the patches and sdiscussing them. * Upstream uses a lot of embedded code copies. Most of them with patches. That means that one has to get rid of them, tweak the sources so as to be able to use system-wide libraries, and most importantly, deal with any breakages that may happen. That's my main problem: they have their own copy of ffmpeg, which is a huge, fast-moving library, and trying to ensure blender is usable at any time after ffmpeg updates isn't trivial (obvious API breakages are still OK, but subtle ones aren't). It looks like I was able to restore the broken sound output, but not the broken video output (not to mention it's been quite some time, like several weeks/months, and I'm quite feeling guilty about that). [I should note there's another upstream bugfix release (2.49a, Debian is at 2.49), which I didn't investigate yet. Maybe that particular bug was noted by upstream and fixed, but I think my point stands anyway.] Which makes me wonder if there's a point in keeping blender as it is. Maybe with someone able to dedicate a lot of time to it, that might be feasible; but for one, I'm not really keen on spending lots of time on problems upstream doesn't even care about (I've been kind of flamed for posting a patch to add support for using system-wide libraries). So: what should I do? I'm thinking about orphaning the package as a first step, and if nobody takes care of it as much as it is needed, just remove it from the distribution. Packaging would still be available in a git repository, so if someone sometime picks it up, it should be quite easy not to start from scratch again. Thanks for any insights. Mraw, (kind-of-lost-) KiBi. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: What to do with (packages like) Blender?
On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Cyril Bruleboisk...@debian.org wrote: It's been a while and I'm now really wondering what to do with Blender. So that everyone can understand, I'm going to try and sum up what I'm facing. Please note it's not intended to be a rant, rather a summary of what I've to deal with. Has upstream been receptive to patches you sent? I would personally lean towards removing it from Debian even though some Debian users may riot. Perhaps they will riot in the direction of upstream and thus bring some sanity to the situation that hasn't yet been achieved. Unfortunately that means no Yo Frankie! in Debian (which has problems of its own). -- bye, pabs http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
