[Bug 1030] Review request: xbmc - Media center

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 02/24/2010 08:44 AM, Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 04:16 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> OK, an attempt of a short summary:
>>
>>
>> * Technically: *-12 doesn't build for FC13 ;)
>>
>> - An API change between rpmfusion's FC12 and FC13's ffmpeg breaks xbmc.
>> - xbmc is victim of the DSO changes in FC13.
>> - There is a subtile configure script bug somewhere causing it to
>> (silently) not to work for FC13.
>>
>> I have dirty hacks addressing the 1st and 2nd issues pending, but am
>> still investigating the latter, yet. Could be one these "autoreconf is
>> harmful" cases,
I found the cause: It's a case of "running autoreconf during builts is 
harmful".

In this case, it's xbmc's configure.ac hitting a bug in autoconf-2.65 
(Upstream autoconf is aware about this issue.)
Bug against fedora's autoconf filed:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=568039

>> could also be a side-effect of the DSO-changes, could be
>> something else, ... I don't know yet.
>>
>>
>> * Usability-wise:
>> - Verify that python works sufficiently.
>> There have been reports that xbmc's python scripts (python2.4) don't
>> work on Fedora (python2.6). I haven't see any such python breakdown yet,
>> so I don't know how to reproduce such breakdown.
>>
>> - Decide about what to do with xbmc-standalone.
>> IMO, it's dysfunctional.
>>
>> - Decide about what to do with /usr/bin/xbmc's "core dump feature".
>> To me, it's nothing but silly.
>>
>>
>> * Perform a legal review.
>>
>> - AFAICT, even if putting patent issues aside, xbmc is not [L]GPL'ed,
>> because it contains subpackages/libraries which are not
>> [L]GPL-compatible.  The original xbmc code certainly is "free", but I am
>> having strong doubts if all of the libraries they have bundled, are
>> (e.g. GoAHead, UnRar).
>>
>> In Fedora, I would reject this package for "improper licensing" and/or
>> delegate it for legal review to FE-LEGAL. No idea, about what rpmfusion
>> wants to do about it.
>>
>> - One detail: xbmc contains fonts, which suspiciously look like "bundled
>> msttcorefonts", but I haven't checked the details, yet.
>>
>>
>> * Packaging-wise/FPG-compliance-wise: xbmc contains many "bundled"
>> libraries.
>>
>> Alex, Rolf and I already removed some of them, but one would have to
>> check further of them can be replaced with "unbundled" versions and
>> which of them can't because upstream xbmc has hacked them up.
>
> Is it all right if I put this summary into the review request (or if you
> wanted to do it, that would be fine)?
Feel free to do so.

> FWIW, I'd be happy to continue on the original review request.
So would be I -- unfortunately, I am currently suffering from "lack of 
time" and am hardly able to keep the pace with this review ;)

Ralf