[gst-devel] GStreamer status, 20 Sept 2005

Tue Sep 20 08:09:20 CEST 2005

Thanks for that very good resume Andy, i'd also like to add that my
brother Sebastien MOUTTE is hardly working on getting GStreamer HEAD to
build on MSVC7.1. We should have a working core for Windows pretty soon.

On Tue, 2005-09-20 at 16:44 +0200, Andy Wingo wrote:
> Aloha hackers,
> 
> This is the first installment of what I hope will be a weekly or
> biweekly newsletter on the state of GStreamer. You will find in it a
> discussion of recent API changes, bug and release status, and notes on a
> featured application built with GStreamer. I hope you enjoy this first
> one. Let me know what you think about it, good or bad, and especially
> let me know if you want to write a paragraph or so about your area of
> GStreamer interest.
> 
> 
> Recent Core Changes
> -------------------
> 
> The registry recently underwent a rewrite at the hands of David Scheef.
> Developers will notice that there are no more pluggable registries or
> registry pools, and that some of the plugin/pluginfeature semantics have
> changed. Users will notice that there is no more gst-register. Initial
> reports show this registry to be faster at rebuilding than the old one
> and that run-time rebuilding actually works. Someone should port the
> gnome-multimedia utilities to 0.9 to see how the changes affect Gnome
> startup time :-)
> 
> Also, Wim Taymans checked in some bus-related changes. What was called a
> GstBusHandler is now a GstBusFunc, to match the naming of GSourceFunc,
> and its return value is just like any other GSourceFunc -- that is, TRUE
> to keep the source in the GMainContext, and FALSE otherwise. Also, now
> you can attach multiple bus watches, each listening to a different set
> of events. A related change is that gst_bus_poll now returns the actual
> message that was received, not just its type -- no need to explicitly
> pop the message off the bus anymore.
> 
> In other changes, Stefan Kost checked in a patch to use GLib 2.8's
> atomic refcounting for GObject, which was something Wim pushed hard for
> in GLib's last development cycle. Of course, we still support the hacks
> that allow GStreamer to work reliably with GLib as old as 2.4, but you
> have to be careful when getting an object from GLib, as with
> g_value_get_object.
> 
> David also recently removed our atomic memchunk and trash stack
> implementations, which is related to ongoing work in GLib -- see
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=118439. This change shouldn't
> affect anyone out there.
> 
> Thomas on the other hand has continued on his masochistic selfless quest
> for quality, adding a 'make valgrind' target to the build. He will be
> rewarded in heaven.
> 
> 
> Buildbot status
> ---------------
> 
> The buildbot configuration has been partly upgraded for some slaves to
> build the new modules. The Mac OSX buildslave is on a short holiday
> while it's being upgraded. The Fedora Core 4 slave will now be
> valgrinding and reporting leaks as failures.
> 
> Remember - if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
> problem ! Buildbot will still blame you if you keep committing to a tree
> that's in a broken state. So hold off committing if the tree is broken
> and you're not trying to fix it yourself.
> 
> We are still looking for more build slave platforms to add to our
> system.  In particular, a Windows slave would be great.
> 
> 
> Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch
> ----------------------------
> 
> Or, notable activity in the plugins modules. Have you checked out the
> plugins documentation[1]? Go and see it and then tell Thomas how awesome
> he is. The goal here is to have every element come with either an
> example launch line or a small program that demonstrates the use of the
> element. This is a very simple thing for new developers to be
> contributing to and it helps in understanding how GStreamer works.
> 
> gst-plugins-base: Leak fixing, a new RTP payloader base class, 24 bit
> audioconvert
> 
> gst-plugins-good: Work on RTP payloaders (AMR, GSM, H263, MP4, MPA),
> wavparse updates
> 
> gst-plugins-bad: A ported SDL video sink, yay
> 
> gst-plugins-ugly: lame updates, documentation work
> 
> [1] http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/plugins.html
> 
> 
> Bug Activity
> ------------
> 
> Total number of GStreamer bugs as of today : 200
> Number opened in the last week             : +21
> Number closed in the last week             : -22
> Net change                                 : -1
> 
> GStreamer is currently number 9 on the list of projects with the most
> bugs in GNOME bugzilla. Our project is a pile of bugs!
> 
> Luca Ognibene has put together a triaged list of bugs for the stable
> series (0.8) here[2]. Some of these are low-hanging fruit, and it's an
> easy-to-read list -- check it out if you have half an hour free
> sometime.
> 
> [2] http://skaboy.no-ip.org/~luogni/gst08-bug-status-20050919
> 
> 
> Featured Application: Banshee
> -----------------------------
> 
> Christian Schaller lets us know about this week's featured application.
> 
> A lot of application development is being done using Mono and C# these
> days and Banshee is no exception. Banshee is a music player being
> developed with the support of Novell with a interface similar to what
> you find in applications such as iTunes and Rhythmbox. Banshee is has a
> lot of work being put in to support seamless syncing with Apple iPods
> and includes its own GStreamer mp3 encoder for instance to acomplish
> this. Doesn't yet support the DAAP music sharing like Rhythmbox does for
> instance, but if iPod support is what you want then this is definetly
> the application to look out for. Banshee is licensed under a MIT style
> license. You can find out more on the Banshee homepage:
> 
> http://www.banshee-project.org/index.php/Main_Page
> 
> 
> Well that's all for this week. Thanks to Thomas, Luca, and Christian for
> their contributions to this week's edition, and if you want to write
> something for next week, send it along to me, preferably before Monday.
> 
> Until next time,