blog/data/2021-05-01-vlc-bittorrent.txt

   1 Title: VLC bittorrent plugin in Bullseye, saved by the bell?
   2 Tags: english, video, verkidetfri
   3 Date: 2021-05-01 11:00
   4
   5 <p>Yesterday morning I got a warning call from the Debian quality
   6 control system that
   7 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/vlc-plugin-bittorrent">the VLC
   8 bittorrent plugin</a> was due to be removed because of a release
   9 critical bug in one of its dependencies.  As you might remember, this
  10 plugin make VLC able to stream videos directly from a bittorrent
  11 source using both torrent files and magnet links, similar to using a
  12 HTTP source.  I believe such protocol support is a vital feature in
  13 VLC, allowing efficient streaming from sources such at the almost 7
  14 million movies in <a href="https://archive.org/">the Internet
  15 Archive</a>.</p>
  16
  17 <p>The dependency was the unmaintained
  18 <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libtorrent-rasterbar">libtorrent-rasterbar</a>
  19 package, and <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/987306">the bug in
  20 question</a> blocked its python library from working properly.  As I
  21 did not want Bullseye to release without bittorrent support in VLC, I
  22 set out to check out the status, and track down a fix for the problem.
  23 Luckily the issue had already been identified and fixed upstream,
  24 providing everything needed.  All I needed to do was to fetch the
  25 Debian git repository, extract and trim the patch from upstream and
  26 apply it to the Debian package for upload.</p>
  27
  28 <p>The fixed library was uploaded yesterday evening.  But that is not
  29 enough to get it into Bullseye, as Debian is currently in package
  30 freeze to prepare for a new next stable release.  Only non-critical
  31 packages with
  32 <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/ContinuousIntegration/autopkgtest">autopkgtest
  33 setup</a> included, in other words able to validate automatically that
  34 the package is working, are allowed to migrate automatically into the
  35 next release at this stage.  And the unmaintained libtorrent-rasterbar
  36 lack such testing, and thus needed a manual override.  I am happy to
  37 report that such manual override was approved a few minutes ago, thus
  38 increasing significantly the chance of VLC bittorrent streaming being
  39 available out of the box also for Debian/Buster users.  A bit too
  40 close shave for my liking, as the Bullseye release is most likely just
  41 a few days away, and this  did feel like the package was saved by the
  42 bell.  I am so glad the warning email showed up in time for me to
  43 handle the issue, and a big thanks go to the Debian Release team for
  44 the quick feedback on
  45 <a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-release">#debian-release</a>
  46 and their <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/987865">swift
  47 unblocking</a>.</p>
  48
  49 <p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
  50 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
  51 <b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>