[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] The Big Bump checklist

[Stefano Sabatini]

On date Tuesday 2011-02-22 08:21:44 -0500, Ronald S. Bultje encoded:
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 7:44 AM, Diego Elio Petten? <flameeyes at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Il giorno mar, 22/02/2011 alle 11.04 +0100, Stefano Sabatini ha scritto:
> >>
> >> As for the *when*, I suppose the best timing is *just after* release
> >> for minimizing the impact on users.
> >
> > Uhm, you do know that this means that people relying on the release will
> > find themselves using an ABI that has already been discarded?
> >
> > With my distro hat on, the bump should be done *before* the release,
> > definitely not after.

There are not only the distros to consider, but also applications
which rely on the old API and which will upgrade only for "official"
releases. And considering the state of Debian, distro packages tend to
be very outdated, dropping the old API means that a lot of packages
will have to depend on the previous packaged release.

Releasing and dropping the deprecated API just afterhand, and give
another year for application developers to catch up with the new API
seems a much better plan to me, especially considering how disruptive
the bump will be given the delay from the previous one.
 
> We can introduce all new API, with wrappers and compatibility for old
> API/ABI, for this next release. Everything is properly marked as
> deprecated, new API is there, apps can directly use it.
> 
> Then next release, old API/ABI is gone, new API was already there,
> magic, and it's all done.
> 
> But either way is fine with me.
-- 
FFmpeg = Fantastic & Fundamentalist Meaningful Portable Efficient Game