[flac-dev] Tag flac as flac 1.2.1_git

Erik de Castro Lopo mle+la at mega-nerd.com
Mon Jan 21 22:57:35 PST 2013


Brian Willoughby wrote:

> The flac front-end utility should have its own version number, on a  
> separate schedule from the flac library. I can see that we'd be able  
> to add features to the utility quite extensively without ever  
> changing the file format or the library. I realize that the utility  
> has historically shared the library version number, but I see a  
> strong case to separate them from each other to free up development  
> possibilities.

My main interest in FLAC is the library. I actually don't use the
flac front-end utility myself apart from its use in the test suite.

> Apart from fixing some issues with newer compilers, the library is  
> the same code. It should probably remain 1.2.1 or advance to 1.2.2 if  
> there are actually any significant code changes.

The code should definitely *not* stay at 1.2.1.

IMO, any code change at all, even just whitespace is worthy of its
own version number. If the md5sum of the source code tarball is
different it warrants an updated version number.

> If we can agree on separating the library and utility version  
> numbers, then I think we'll have a much better chance of agreeing on  
> version numbers.

Its use in the test suite means it can't be extracted from the 
FLAC library sources without replicating its capabilities which
would just be silly.

> Not to mention the fact that embedded devices  
> without a command line or any other kind of utility won't needlessly  
> see version number changes when the format remains the same.

Not even bug fixes?

> On that  
> note, I suppose this means we might want to mark FLAC files with the  
> version of the utility that created them, since the format version  
> number won't indicate that going forward - perhaps an application  
> block would be appropriate.

Sorry, but I actually think you have this completely around the wrong
way. FLAC files can be created without the flac command line utility.
That suggests that FLAC files should be marked with the *library*
version that was used to create them.

Erik
-- 
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Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/


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