GStreamer 0.6.0 released

[Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <Uraeus linuxrising org>]

GStreamer "Hottest Pick" 0.6.0 released[*]

The GStreamer team is happy to announce our first ABI stable release
series. The 0.6.x series of the GStreamer streaming-media framework. 

At this point in time GStreamer is fully functional for creating
audio-based applications, as shown by applications such as
gnome-sound-recorder, Rhythmbox and nautilus-media. 

Video-based applications still have some issues at this point, but we
plan on solving those issues during the 0.6.x series in an ABI
compatible way.

We will also be releasing a development 0.7 release series, in which we
will work on such things as the remaining video issues and the
interactivity support which is needed for DVD menus and SWF (Flash).
This means developers working on apps needing these services can use the
0.7 series for development and then enable 0.6 support as these
additions optionally get backported to 0.6 once they are stable and work
well.


Thread issues and GStreamer
Many of GStreamer's features relies heavily on threads. Unfortunately
everything is not rosy in the Linux world of threads. If you have a
glibc version installed compiled with i686 optimizations (which uses a
different codepath than standard i386 glibc), there is a good chance you
will experience thread-related crashes in gstreamer-based applications.
There are a few workarounds to this available.

      * You can use an i386 glibc package instead. (Since this is the
        only one shipping with Debian, debian users do not experience
        this issue.)
      * You can also try running the gstreamer-based applications using
        the command-line option --gst-scheduler=opt, which invokes a
        newly created scheduler that does not use threads. This
        scheduler is very new however so you might encounter other
        issues when using it. Please report issues to our bugzilla.

The GStreamer applications we ship all check for both gstreamer-0.6,
gstreamer-libs-0.6 and gstreamer-play-0.6; if those aren't found the 0.7
version of those files are checked for. We suggest anyone making
GStreamer-based apps do the same.

We are starting to have a really nice collection of applications under
development using GStreamer. If you are looking for something specific
check out our applications status page:
http://www.gstreamer.net/status/?category=2


Features
      * Pipeline based media architecture
      * Over 130 plugins
      * All parts interchangeable
      * Few dependencies, only glib, popt and libxml for core (libxml
        optional)
      * Python Language bindings
      * Good documentation
      * Will be widely deployed through bundling with GNOME 2.2
      * Design catering also for applications needing low-latency
      * Highly portable, already running on most mainstream CPU's
      * Modular design and use of 3rd party best of breed libraries
        means no bloat
      * LGPL licensing lays no restrictions on application developers
        licensing.
      * Easy for applications to ship their own plugins to the core as
        needed
      * Compiles with both GCC and Forte compilers
      * Tested to run on Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris

GStreamer Homepage
More details on these features can be found on the project's website,
http://gstreamer.net/.

Download and build instructions:
http://www.gstreamer.net/releases/0.6.0/



Support and Bugs
We use Gnome's Bugzilla (http://bugzilla.gnome.org) for bug reports and
feature requests. The "product name" is GStreamer (capital G). Please do
the following before writing a bug report :


gst-feedback &> feedback 2>&1
and attach the file "feedback" to your bug report, so that we have some
information useful in the debugging process. 


Developers
GStreamer is hosted on SourceForge. All code is in CVS and can be
checked out from there. Interested developers of the core library,
plug-ins, and applications should subscribe to the gstreamer-devel list.
If there is sufficient interest we will create more lists as necessary.

We are still looking for people with access to FreeBSD, Solaris, HP-UX,
Irix and True64 that would be willing to try building and testing
GStreamer. Patches fixing such problems are also more than welcome.


Contributors to this release
Patches to the core of Gstreamer
      * Wim Taymans <wim.taymans(AT)chello.be>
      * Erik Walthinsen <omega(AT)temple-baptist.com>
      * Thomas Vander Stichele <thomas(AT)apestaart.org>
      * David I. Lehn <dlehn(AT)vt.edu>
      * David Schleef <ds(AT)schleef.org>
      * Brian Cameron <brian.cameron(AT)sun.com>
      * Joshua N Pritikin <vishnu(AT)pobox.com>

Plugins and Sample Applications
      * Julien MOUTTE <jmoutte(AT)electronic-group.com>
      * Cameron Hutchison <camh+gst(AT)xdna.net>
      * Ronald Bultje <rbultje(AT)ronald.bitfreak.net>
      * Steve Baker <stevebaker_org(AT)yahoo.co.uk>
      * Iain Holmes <iain(AT)prettypeople.org>
      * Jérémy Simon <jsimon13(AT)yahoo.fr>
      * Jan Schmidt <thaytan(AT)mad.scientist.com>
      * Daniel Fischer <dan(AT)f3c.com>
      * Martin Schlemmer <azarah(AT)gentoo.org>
      * Andrew Turner <zombie(AT)4free.co.nz>
      * Owen Fraser-Green <owen(AT)discobabe.net>
      * Leif Morgan Johnson <lmjohns3(AT)eos.ncsu.edu>
      * Benjamin Otte <in7y118(AT)public.uni-hamburg.de>

Misc
      * Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <Uraeus(AT)gnome.org>
      * Alp Toker <alp(AT)atoker.com>

[*]: GStreamer is Hottest Pick in the UK Linux Format #36, out now !