About vcl status in avmedia (keep or removed unmaintained code since 7 years)

[julien2412]

Hello,

On pc Debian x86-64 with master sources updated today, my local build fails
with:
/home/julien/lo/libreoffice/avmedia/source/vlc/vlcframegrabber.cxx:25:10:
fatal error: 'vcl/bitmapaccess.hxx' file not found
#include <vcl/bitmapaccess.hxx>
         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's due
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=17aea7c41c95186c03c173a8c6f26cd2ebce4c54
"
author	Chris Sherlock <chris.sherlock79 at gmail.com>	2020-12-19 01:09:27 +1100
committer	Tomaž Vajngerl <quikee at gmail.com>	2020-12-24 09:40:16 +0100
commit	17aea7c41c95186c03c173a8c6f26cd2ebce4c54 (patch)
tree	36c0743c40f3a85467247c585431682334ef3279
parent	d117d402853ee6c103142f0d0ccdb7cd4b8b8d05 (diff)
vcl: move access functions into appropriate bitmap access filesHEADmaster
Split class functions into BitmapInfoAccess.cxx, BitmapReadAccess.cxx
and BitmapWriteAccess.cxx

Split header files into BitmapInfoAccess.hxx and BitmapReadAccess.hxx"

but I suppose it'll be fixed soon.

I had this error and neither Jenkins nor TBs because I use "--enable-vlc" in
autogen.input.
Like other entries in autogen.input, I don't use vlc part, it's more to
detect build errors early.

However considering git history about vlc part (see
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/log/?qt=grep&q=vlc) it seems
there's no real patch since 2013 + it's been explicitely indicated as 
experimental since 2015 with
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=8f4044afa2426befb3f86dda21963576dbb19a9f
"avmedia: disable VLC unless in experimental model.
The code is really not in an ideal state, the key-frame generation is
horrible - involving playing the video for three seconds each time etc.
While the idea is great - the impl. and libvlc API use needs some love
from a VLC expert really."

VLC is indeed a great software but if the support of it in LO has been
unmaintained for so many years (IMHO 7 years is very long in IT domain),
should we still keep this or may we remove it?

Julien



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