[TYPO3-core] Flowplayer in TYPO3

[Ernesto Baschny]

Hi guys,

We discussed the topic in our release team meeting today. Thanks
everybody for their feedback!

We agreed that:

The Debian package in "main" is "nice to have" and not a top priority.

We want it to stay there, but we don't have the resources to "solve" the
Flowplayer Policy problem. Steffen Ritter worked already several times
on that area (during BLE project and FAL project) and the code "stinks"
and is very difficult to "extract" the Flowplayer functionality into an
extension.

Being said that, it *would be nice* if someone is able to do so.

While we don't have any volunteer that is wanting to work on that, I
recommend to Christian to do what Peter and Steffen Gebert suggested:
Simply remove the offending SWF from the package before packaging for
Debian.

Christian, if you see any potential Core patch to make that easier, feel
free to open an issue in our tracker and post a Review request on that.
We are glad if you can help here.

Besides that, since you - Christian - have the "Debian Packaging"
infrastructure already ready for TYPO3 packaging, it would be
interesting to know if you see the possibility to create stable
"official" .deb packages which *we* could provide on typo3.org from
latest releases. Since our packaging server is Debian-based we could
even package them at the same time we release it and thus keep our own
"apt repository" for "cutting edge" TYPO3 packages.

If we reach this state, we could provide a link to that in your Debian
"main" packages (i.e. in the package description or in a post-install
script notification "Please find the latest version of TYPO3 here:
http://typo3.org/debian/").

Regards,
Ernesto


Ernesto Baschny schrieb am 03.06.2013 12:28:
> Christian Welzel - the maintainer of the debian package of TYPO3 -
> brought to our attention that packaging TYPO3 CMS for Debian "main"
> currently has a policy problem with the Flowplayer.
> 
> This is our component which renders movies and audio files in the
> Frontend (through the MEDIA or FLOWPLAYER content objects).
> 
> Debian has the policy that all binary files shipped in main must be
> build with tools also available in main. Unfortunately there is no
> Actionscript 3 compiler in debian that can compile the flowplayer. So
> Christian has to either:
> 
> a) remove the flowplayer swf files (which will leave MEDIA semi
> functional) or
> b) move typo3 to debian/contrib (which is not available for installation
> by default) or
> c) not ship typo3 in debian at all.
> 
> What is your opinion on the matter?
> 
> Some more comments:
> 
> First there is the backwards compatibility problem. TYPO3 needs to
> continue working after an upgrade. So simply "removing" it won't be
> possible in 6.2.
> 
> One potential solution would be to move the code into a separate
> (system) extension, which we could also provide through TER. Christian
> could "simply remove" the sysext before uploading to Debian, and people
> could download it again from TER.
> 
> Maybe we could even remove it from Core altogether and provide an
> Upgrade Wizard for fetching it from TER if required.
> 
> The integration of Flowplayer is somehow "tricky" and "hacky", and it
> will probably not be so easy to "split it out" into an extension.
> 
> Second problem is that the Core team currently does not maintain
> extensions in TER, and there is no policy on them. One possibility which
> we could also use in other situations would be to introduce more "Core
> maintained extensions in TER". Extensions which follow the Core
> principles (the CGL, Deprecation policy, Security Policy and handling,
> release cycles in line with TYPO3 Core release cycles etc), but could be
> released and patched more independently from the core.
> 
> Regards,
> Ernesto Baschny
> 


-- 
Ernesto Baschny
TYPO3 CMS Core Developer
Release Manager TYPO3 4.5 & 6.2 LTS

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