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Re: [Linphone-users] Linphone 3.10 and Ubuntu Linux and Debian Linux


From: J G Miller
Subject: Re: [Linphone-users] Linphone 3.10 and Ubuntu Linux and Debian Linux
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2016 23:21:47 +0200

At 21:42h, on Thursday, September 08, 2016,
in message <address@hidden>,
on the subject of "Re: [Linphone-users] Linphone 3.10 and Ubuntu Linux and 
Debian Linux", you wrote -
 
 > Well, an option would be that Linphone developers, I mean Belledonne
 > Communications, create their own *official* PPA.

Aah, I follow what you are suggesting now.

 > I agree, there is a problem that they cannot support all Linux distros,
 > but Ubuntu is one of the most widespread.

I have a feeling that the Linphone developers at Belledonne Communications
already feel that they already have too many problems to fix and trying to
keep development moving forward at the same time.

The problem with a PPA is not so much setting it up, but dealing with all the
support requests which could then follow, particularly due to library version
conflicts, eg users complaining

  "I installed linphone from your official PPA, but now my vital XXYYZZ
   application refuses to work.  Why are your releasing this garbage?"

Remember linphone depends on some version of libmediastreamer and 
libmediastreamer
is built from some version of either libav or ffmpeg which are very similar but
not identical.  Going from one version of libav or ffmpeg to the next, often
results in applications complaining because the shared library version at
build time was out of necessity wired in, because libav and ffmpeg have of
recent times made incompatible changes to symbolic constant names and function
parameters.

Debian switched from ffmpeg to libav and has recently decided to move
back to ffmpeg, and this will naturally affect Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

And once a source developer starts providing a package for one GNU/Linux 
distribution,
all the people who use other distributions (openSUSE, Fedora, Arch) start 
whining that
they are being discriminated against.

My personal opinion is that it is far better for the Linphone development team 
to
focus on fixing bugs and improving the user interface and other feathures than 
to
be using precious resources in providing a PPA because the major distributions 
are
not currently offering more up to date version of linphone.

Again, if a user wants bleeding edge, then use a rolling release distribution
or compile your own version from source and to keep it and its libraries under
/usr/local so as to minimize possible library version conflicts with the
distribution's own libraries and packages under /usr

 > And for Windows/Mac ecosystem they officially provide compiled binaries...

Because if they did not, nobody else would: Microsoft paid a lot of money
for Skype and that applications keeps the NSA up to date on your conversations. 
 ;+)



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