[Fedora-packaging] RFC: packaging of PhotoFilmStrip

[Garrett Holmstrom]

On 1/11/2011 5:10, Mario Torre wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> I am in the process to package a simple application for creating short
> movies from a set of photos.
>
> The application is called PhotoFilmStrip and can be found here:
>
> http://www.photofilmstrip.org/
>
> I initially submitted to RPM Fusion because of the dependency on
> mencoder, but a reviewer from RPM Fusion noticed that the application
> can be used without this dependecy, although it cannot output (render)
> the movie.
>
> This means that we can include in in Fedora, but keep a meta-package
> with the appropriate dependecy on mencoder to enable the rendering.
>
> I'm not entirely sure how this application could be useful if we remove
> the render functionality, though, as it's pretty limited otherwise and
> the risk is to give users the wrong perception that a fedora package is
> simply broken.
>
> There is also another problem, without mencoder, when clicking to the
> render box, I get a stack trace instead of a warning to install
> mencoder, so, at the very minimum, the app should be patched to allow a
> nice dialog instead of a scaring python stack trace.
>
> I will try to get in touch with the author to see if he is interested in
> fixing this behaviour (and perhaps if he wants to add support to WebM
> and Theora), but I would like to know what is the current guideline for
> issues such as this?

Since the program is unable to perform its primary function without 
mencoder I'm pretty sure the following guideline [1] applies:

"...packages which are not functional or useful without code or packages 
from third-party sources are not acceptable for inclusion in Fedora."

[1] 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#Packages_which_are_not_useful_without_external_bits