[MPlayer-users] Packaged regressions

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson <at> cox.net> writes:

> 
> On 08/08/2012 02:48 AM, Carl Eugen Hoyos wrote:
> [snip]
> > The packager of your MPlayer version intentionally compiled it with
> > several hundred known regressions (that are not reproducible with
> > MPlayer), some of them may be security relevant.
> > That is not necessarily connected to your problem (I don't know).
> 
> How can we enumerate them so as to question the packager?

(I should have added that the Debian maintainers have repeatedly 
stated they do not care about such bugs, no matter if they are 
security relevant or not.)
As you probably know, FFmpeg is an integral part of the MPlayer 
source code, your version was compiled against one of FFmpeg's 
forks. This specific fork is known to contain several hundred 
regressions, some of them possibly security relevant.
Fortunately, you don't have to trust my word about this:
Simply test fixed bugs from the FFmpeg bug tracker with avconv, 
and open bugs from the fork's bug tracker with FFmpeg. 
(You can also test open bugs from the FFmpeg bug tracker with 
avconv and closed bugs from the fork's bug tracker with FFmpeg, 
but you will not get many interesting results.)
Also consider testing old open bugs from roundup, some are also 
only fixed in FFmpeg.

Of course, not every FFmpeg bug is reproducible with MPlayer, 
but many are.

Allow me to add that some people have repeatedly stated that 
there is (at least) one severe regression in FFmpeg over the 
mentioned fork; unfortunately, so far nobody was able to 
explain what this regression is about or how it can be 
reproduced.

Carl Eugen