blog/data/2025-02-09-xiph-oggz-1.1.2.txt

   1 Title: New oggz release 1.1.2 after 15 years
   2 Tags: english, debian, multimedia, standard, video
   3 Date: 2025-02-09 01:10
   4
   5 <p>A little over a week ago, I noticed
   6 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/liboggz">the liboggz
   7 package</a> on my Debian dashboard had not had a new upstream release
   8 for a while.  A closer look showed that its last release, version
   9 1.1.1, happened in 2010.  A few patches had accumulated in the Debian
  10 package, and I even noticed that I had passed on these patches to
  11 upstream five years ago.  A handful crash bugs had been reported
  12 against the Debian package, and looking at the upstream repository I
  13 even found a few crash bugs reported there too.  To add insult to
  14 injury, I discovered that upstream had accumulated several fixes in the
  15 years between 2010 and now, and many of them had not made their way
  16 into the Debian package.  I decided enough was enough, and that a new
  17 upstream release was needed fixing these nasty crash bugs.  Luckily I
  18 am also a member of the Xiph team, aka upstream, and could actually go
  19 to work immediately to fix it.</p>
  20
  21 <p>I started by adding automatic build testing on
  22 <a href="https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/liboggz">the Xiph gitlab oggz
  23 instance</a>, to get a better idea of the state of affairs with the
  24 code base.  This exposed a few build problems, which I had to fix.  In
  25 parallel to this, I sent an email announcing my wish for a new release
  26 to every person who had committed to the upstream code base since
  27 2010, and asked for help doing a new release both on email and on the
  28 #xiph IRC channel.  Sadly only a fraction of their email providers
  29 accepted my email.  But Ralph Giles in the Xiph team came to the
  30 rescue and provided invaluable help to guide be through the release
  31 Xiph process.  While this was going on, I spent a few days tracking
  32 down the crash bugs with good help from
  33 <a href="https://www.valgrind.org/">valgrind</a>, and came up with
  34 patch proposals to get rid of at least these specific crash bugs.  The
  35 open issues also had to be checked.  Several of them proved to be
  36 fixed already, but a few I had to creat patches for.  I also checked
  37 out the Debian, Arch, Fedora, Suse and Gentoo packages to see if there
  38 were patches applied in these Linux distributions that should be
  39 passed upstream.  The end result was ready yesterday.  A new liboggz
  40 release, version 1.1.2, was tagged, wrapped up and published on the
  41 project page.  And today, the new release was uploaded into
  42 Debian.</p>
  43
  44 <p>You are probably by now curious on what actually changed in the
  45 library.  I guess the most interesting new feature was support for
  46 Opus and VP8.  Almost all other changes were stability or
  47 documentation fixes.  The rest were related to the gitlab continuous
  48 integration testing.  All in all, this was really a minor update,
  49 hence the version bump only from 1.1.1 to to 1.1.2, but it was long
  50 overdue and I am very happy that it is out the door.</p>
  51
  52 <p>One change proposed upstream was not included this time, as it
  53 extended the API and changed some of the existing library methods, and
  54 thus require a major SONAME bump and possibly code changes in every
  55 program using the library.  As I am not that familiar with the code
  56 base, I am unsure if I am the right person to evaluate the change.
  57 Perhaps later.</p>
  58
  59 <p>Since the release was tagged, a few minor fixes has been committed
  60 upstream already: automatic testing the cross building to Windows, and
  61 documentation updates linking to the correct project page.  If a
  62 important issue is discovered with this release, I guess a new release
  63 might happen soon including the minor fixes.  If not, perhaps they can
  64 wait fifteen years. :)</p>
  65
  66 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  67 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  68 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>