mtn 3.3.2 (new formula)

[vitkabele]

New formula mtn - Movie Thumbnailer. First introduced in 2009, now
modified for macOS.

• Have you followed the guidelines for contributing?
• Have you checked that there aren't other open pull requests for the same formula update/change?
• Have you built your formula locally with brew install --build-from-source <formula>, where <formula> is the name of the formula you're submitting?
• Is your test running fine brew test <formula>, where <formula> is the name of the formula you're submitting?
• Does your build pass brew audit --strict <formula> (after doing brew install <formula>)?

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[zbeekman]

@vitkabele Can you confirm that the upstream project on sourceforge is no longer maintained? Do you know if any effort has been made to contact them or officially pass the torch?

I ask, because on gitlab alone, it doesn't seem like this project would be popular enough for inclusion in homebrew-core, however, I see that it is still getting ~100 downloads per week from sourceforge. If the original upstream is unmaintained and is not reachable or has given their blessing to the gitlab hosted version then I'm 👍 to merge this. If not, then I'm more hesitant, but I wouldn't rule it out (yet).

[vitkabele]

Well, this is complicated. The project on sourceforge abandoned and it's impossible to contact the author as he is not even responding to the discussion. I found some other unmaintained forks over the internet, but the fact is, that the most popular source is the unmaintained original repository with last update from 2013. It would be nice to redirect the sourceforge website to ours, but I don't know how to achieve this without the autor.

[zbeekman]

@vitkabele Are there bugs in the original that are fixed on this fork? Or significant improvements over the original? Are any other package managers shipping this fork of mtn?

On the one hand, on GitLab it only has 8 stars, and it appears you're associated with the project so this seems "self submitted." But on the other hand the original project seems popular, and if there are significant bugs and/or improvements on your fork it would be good to migrate folks to a more reliable version.

What do other @Homebrew/maintainers think?

[MikeMcQuaid]

It looks like Debian didn't package this for similar reasons: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=704942

I'd suggest considering a new name for the application to distinguish it from it. We would want to see some increased popularity and a submission from someone not on the core team to include this in Homebrew. This would be a good tap candidate, though!

[vitkabele]

Indeed the main improvement is migrating to current FFmpeg version. I am not aware of anything else. My only related work in this project is related to smooth compilation on macOS.

requested info provided

[zbeekman]

It looks like Debian didn't package this for similar reasons: bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=704942

@MikeMcQuaid actually, if I'm following that thread correctly, it looks like debian rejected packaging the original version because it didn't play nicely with the latest libraries. Given that @vitkabele's involvement was to ensure macOS support, and the fact that people are downloading ~100 copies of outdated and unmaintained versions a week from sourceforge (which has also become a sketchy source for software, IMO) I'm inclined to accept this. Also, I think visibility at gitlab.com is lower than github.com, but I haven't checked the stats.

[zbeekman]

Although, maybe we want to rename the formula if it is accepted to distinguish it from the original? IDK.

[MikeMcQuaid]

if I'm following that thread correctly, it looks like debian rejected packaging the original version because it didn't play nicely with the latest libraries.

Yes and because upstream was considered dead.

the fact that people are downloading ~100 copies of outdated and unmaintained versions a week from sourceforge

I'm not sure I see how this is relevant unless there's known security vulnerabilities that are unpatched. To be pedantic: it's not an outdated version.

from sourceforge (which has also become a sketchy source for software, IMO)

SourceForge's issues were bundling "adware/spyware" with Windows installers which again doesn't seem relevant to this case.

I'm inclined to accept this

If you personally feel strongly: I'm not going to stop you. It does seem in contradiction of multiple our of recommendations for accepting new formulae, though.

[zbeekman]

SourceForge's issues were bundling "adware/spyware" with Windows installers which again doesn't seem relevant to this case.

It's only relevant in that they were exploiting OpenSource rather blatantly and maliciously, and I think that people should stop hosting their code there as a result of that. Anything I can do to drive traffic away is a win in my book.

However, your other points are all valid ones.

@vitkabele if you need help setting up a tap, please let me know I'd be happy to assist. I'd suggest adding the tap on github, and possibly mirroring the gitlab repo to github to improve popularity. If it gains additional popularity and momentum we'll reconsider it for submission into homebrew-core at that time.

@vitkabele thanks again for taking the time to submit this, and thanks @MikeMcQuaid for your constructive feedback!

[vitkabele]

So you guys suggest to fork the project with totally different name and let it live it’s own life till the old mtn will disappear in the past?

I’m relatively new to the open source community and I’m not sure about how this is with licenses.

[zbeekman]

So you guys suggest to fork the project with totally different name and let it live it’s own life till the old mtn will disappear in the past?

No, that's not what I'm suggesting.

• It appears the project is already forked at https://gitlab.com/movie_thumbnailer/mtn Presumably it's using the same license as the original, or at least is compliant the original license in terms of attribution, etc.
• (Optional): You can create a homebrew "tap" which is just a git repository that hosts your formula outside of homebrew-core. Unless you setup infrastructure to build binary bottles, users will still have to build the formula from source but it makes the collection of dependencies and build environment easier and the general installation process easier. Users would then brew tap vitkabele/movie_thumbnailer followed by brew install mtn to install your formula. You can add multiple formulae to your tap. A tap is kind of like a PPA on ubuntu.
• (VERY optional): Create a mirror on github (completely optional). A mirror is just a copy of the git repository. I think gitlab has a pretty easy mechanism to set this up. If not there are other ways to do this. The mirror will track all git activity at https://gitlab.com/movie_thumbnailer/mtn. The reason I am suggesting this is basically just to advertise your fork to the world and increase its visibility. It's possible that on github it will gain popularity faster than gitlab, but who knows.

To me, the biggest show stopper for adding this to core right now is it's low usage/popularity. The other issues can be at least partially addressed in the future. But given that it seems as if there would be relatively low demand right now, it's hard to justify the other exceptions and the effort it would take to resolve some of them.

[MikeMcQuaid]

So you guys suggest to fork the project with totally different name and let it live it’s own life till the old mtn will disappear in the past?

I am suggesting that personally, yes. As long as you preserve the existing license/copyright header(s) then that will be OK.

[vitkabele]

Thank you so much for your time! I'm gonna work on it and maybe once I will show up here again!

[MikeMcQuaid]

@vitkabele Thank you too!