New post on VLC and bittorrent.

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+Title: VLC bittorrent plugin in Bullseye, saved by the bell?
+Tags: english, video, verkidetfri
+Date: 2021-05-01 11:00
+
+<p>Yesterday morning I got a warning call from the Debian quality
+control system that
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/vlc-plugin-bittorrent">the VLC
+bittorrent plugin</a> was due to be removed because of a release
+critical bug in one of its dependencies.  As you might remember, this
+plugin make VLC able to stream videos directly from a bittorrent
+source using both torrent files and magnet links, similar to using a
+HTTP source.  I believe such protocol support is a vital feature in
+VLC, allowing efficient streaming from sources such at the almost 7
+million movies in <a href="https://archive.org/">the Internet
+Archive</a>.</p>
+
+<p>The dependency was the unmaintained
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libtorrent-rasterbar">libtorrent-rasterbar</a>
+package, and <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/987306">the bug in
+question</a> blocked its python library from working properly.  As I
+did not want Bullseye to release without bittorrent support in VLC, I
+set out to check out the status, and track down a fix for the problem.
+Luckily the issue had already been identified and fixed upstream,
+providing everything needed.  All I needed to do was to fetch the
+Debian git repository, extract and trim the patch from upstream and
+apply it to the Debian package for upload.</p>
+
+<p>The fixed library was uploaded yesterday evening.  But that is not
+enough to get it into Bullseye, as Debian is currently in package
+freeze to prepare for a new next stable release.  Only non-critical
+packages with
+<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/ContinuousIntegration/autopkgtest">autopkgtest
+setup</a> included, in other words able to validate automatically that
+the package is working, are allowed to migrate automatically into the
+next release at this stage.  And the unmaintained libtorrent-rasterbar
+lack such testing, and thus needed a manual override.  I am happy to
+report that such manual override was approved a few minutes ago, thus
+increasing significantly the chance of VLC bittorrent streaming being
+available out of the box also for Debian/Buster users.  A bit too
+close shave for my liking, as the Bullseye release is most likely just
+a few days away, and this  did feel like the package was saved by the
+bell.  I am so glad the warning email showed up in time for me to
+handle the issue, and a big thanks go to the Debian Release team for
+the quick feedback on
+<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-release">#debian-release</a>
+and their <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/987865">swift
+unblocking</a>.</p>
+ 
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>