[vlc-devel] Windows releases

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Hello,

On 05/04/2016 12:37, Rafaël Carré wrote:
> Why are users on 2.2.1 not prompted to upgrade to 2.2.2
> despite it fixing a bunch of vulnerabilities?

Because of the green line regression, and the numerous bugs related to that.

> Another question, why are win64 users still on 2.1.5 ???

Because you did not update to 2.2.1.

> I fixed that to 2.2.2 but I notice this has been
> reverted without me being aware of it.

See above, about greenline.

> I think it's very much not collaborative and I am not
> sure what to do there, thus I'm asking about these issues
> in public.

Sorry, but the problem is that you do your stuff on your own, you don't 
listen to other and do the stuff in the way you want, even after we told 
you to do differently. And you misuse your powers.
So yes, I'm ignoring you on IRC for now, because I do not want to fight.
Fighting takes too much time that I do not have.

Note that I'm not saying you're doing the following because of malice or 
evilness (we have elenril for that), but that you are careless and 
that's annoying for build and releases.


So, here are my explanations:

1) You do not care about Windows 64 and do not test it.

You clearly do not use Windows 64, and you don't test VLC on it. And I 
mean actual testing, not just launch VLC once.

Related to that, you do listen to the users, not answer on the forum, do 
not triage the trac tickets, do not answer on videolan at .

If you had, you'd see that they are many issues that are Win64 only and 
are not fixed.

For example:
DVD do not seem to work in win64, but work in win32. You can see 
numerous complaints on the forum, and on our videolan@ mailing list, in 
the last weeks:
[videolan] dvd stops playing
[videolan] Your app refuses to open my cds or or dvds

DVD is not a fringe feature...

Other example:
Left click Mouse not responsive on widgets!
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=131242
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=127765&p=429621&hilit=mouse#p429621
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=128656&p=431927&hilit=mouse#p431927
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=110241&p=427187&hilit=mouse#p427187

People can't CLICK on the interface! That's like the most basic we could do.
Solution: https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=131242#p438939 use 
32bits version

Final example: in the 10 months where 2.2.1 was the official release, 
you did not even test the update system, which was blocked on 2.1.5.
Else, you would have asked/did the upgrade on the update system.

And there are numerous examples of playback not working in 64bits. The 
forum is full of those...

2) You miscompile VLC
We discussed numerous times why we should use static libgcc for the VLC 
build, because doing otherwise breaks any application using a different 
working directory (C++ modules wouldn't load, because libgcc_s not in 
the LoadLibrary path), and because it was breaking usage as 3rd party 
application, as soon as they don't have the exact same compiler and 
toolchain.
Yet, you keep having libgcc_s_seh in the 64bit build, for no good reason.

3) contribs, altair and buildbot
We clearly said, during VDD, and on IRC, that we must keep gcc 4.9 for 
all the 2.2.x builds, and upgrade to gcc5 for 3.0. Changing compiler can 
bring regressions that are annoying. And gcc5 breaks the C++ ABI.
Which is why I did pin gcc-mingw to 4.9.3 on altair.

On 2015-12-28, you upgraded to 5.3.1.
And of course, because of that, you broke all the builds for Win32 until 
Feb 18 (50 days!), including all the nightly build.

So, yeah, maybe that should have been more clear, like a post on the ml, 
still this is really uncool, because you did not ask...

4) contribs, continued
Because of that, you redid some contribs for Win32 on Feb 18: 
ftp://ftp.videolan.org/pub/videolan/contrib/i686-w64-mingw32/vlc-contrib-i686-w64-mingw32-20160218.tar.bz2
without telling me, who is still the defacto maintainer for win32...

The other issues are:
- they are built on a 64bits machine, which breaks compilation for 
everyone on a 32bits machine, (moc 32bits can run on 64bits, not the 
opposite). And the documentation to build was not updated to explain 
this. And I'm quite sure we mentioned that in the past.
- gcc 5...
- they are missing some libraries (not that important, but still)

5) root mis-use and ftpmaster
You asked for root access, at a VideoLAN meeting. Fine.
Yet you've done almost nothing for roots. So why ask for it?
And you keep misusing it.

For whatever reason, you refuse to use the ftp incoming like everyone 
else (x265 people, jpsaman, Meuuh, hpi, Felix, me) and you insist on 
copying files through sftp as root. And of course, almost always in the 
wrong container or in the main host!
Since the migration to goldeneye, I'm quite sure that we said this was 
not the way to go. We spoke numerous time of the split and difference 
between roots and ftpmasters and about the LXCs separation, at several 
roots meeting.

And then, you did the same for the update.videolan.org, in a different 
LXC!! And you copied status-win64 as root:root!
First if you do those actions as roots, you did something wrong (you 
should almost never do anything at root, unless necessary), but it did 
not bother you that NOTHING else in the folder was owned by root...
(and that is beside the fact that we said we should not do the update to 
2.2.2, as previously explained.)

Sure not everything is perfect on Goldeneye (including on the ftp 
permissions), but we're working quite a bit on improving security and 
having correct privilege separations, and you ignore that.

6) IRC ban abuse
You kicked me out of channels, because I was not responding to you in 
the timely fashion you wanted. You know, you can mail me, you can ask 
other to speak to me if it is urgent, or you can even phone me.
But that does not allow you to kick me of a chan.


Windows Signature
-----------------
As explained already, the issue with the Windows certificate, is that 
the cert does not and cannot have the password. So anyone with this cert 
can sign any software and have it running full privilege on Windows. And 
that's before the Centennial project, where we'd run full-trust.
So, no, I don't transfer it lightly, even if you ask. And without a full 
GPG setup, or IRL.


So yes, I'm sorry, I have nothing against you, nor do I believe you are 
mis-intentionned, nor do I dislike you, nor do I believe you hate me or 
something.

However, it is beyond me why you want to maintain the win64 port or want 
to be root and manage those releases or buildsystem, because of the 
points listed above.
Not to mention that you are extremely skilled in programming and we 
deeply need programmers, and so your time would be more valuable 
elsewhere, notably in VLC development.


With my very best regards,

-- 
Jean-Baptiste Kempf
http://www.jbkempf.com/ - +33 672 704 734
Sent from my Electronic Device