[arch-general] arch health

[Mauro Santos]

On 20-04-2017 23:37, Carsten Mattner wrote:
> Bug has been reported in Arch's tracker and there's a companion
> bug from someone else about ffmpeg2.8. It makes sense to report
> in Arch first because arch has published 3.3 in testing and maybe
> ffmpeg's version scheme is just convoluted and 3.3 is unstable
> while 2.8 and 3.2 (even numbers) were stable branches. ffmpeg.org
> doesn't label 3.3 as a dev branch so I don't blame arch for
> picking ffmpeg3.3. In fact it says 3.3 is a stable release.

In case of doubt you should ask upstream, doesn't mean it has to be a
bug report right away, you can start by asking in a mailing list. If it
turns out it really is a nasty bug then opening a bug in arch's bug
tracker for the current affected version is the way to go to get the
attention of the maintainer. Obviously you should provide links to
upstream's bug report or mailing list thread.

> The corruption is easy to reproduce and so obvious that I didn't
> consider reporting it to ffmpeg.org. It looks impossible to slip
> their tests.

I haven't used ffmpeg directly very much so I don't know if there are
any ways to shoot yourself in the foot, but you should consider that
what is broken and easy to reproduce for you might just work™ for
someone else. If upstream didn't catch it and no one else is complaining
you have to consider the problem _could_ be in your setup.

> I'm using ffmpeg 2.8.11 now, but since it's dangerous for other
> users to have their files corrupted, I think an official downgrade
> to 3.2.4 is in order.

If you've reported the bug both upstream and in arch's bug tracker and
it turns out it really is a nasty bug it will most probably either get a
downgrade or will be patched quickly (after upstream fixes it).

-- 
Mauro Santos