theora dev - Mar 2025 - Theora 1.2.0beta1 is released (Was: Time for a new theora release)

Now almost everything on my plate is included in the master branch on
gitlab (and the sync to github is back in operation), and I believe the
code base is ready for wider testing.  I hope you can help here.

If you want a tarball, it can be picked up from the CI run on gitlab, as
an artifact for the autotools-gcc build.  At the moment the latest
edition is available from
<URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora/-/jobs/30699/artifacts/browse >.

The only remaining fix I am working on is adjusting
examples/player_example.c to be able to play video on Linux systems
without /dev/dsp.  The quick and easy way was to just disable audio
playout, and this is what the current patch in
<URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora/-/merge_requests/36 > have
been partially successful at doing.  I needed it to quickly be able to
test video playout using the new code.  I am contemplating to rewrite it
to actually work with current Linux audio systems like pulseaudio, but
have not yet mustered the motivation and spare time required to do so.
I do not consider the patch vital for the release, so no need to wait
for its perfection before wrapping up the release.

Unless some fatal flaw is discovered, I plan to wrap up a new release
saturday 2025-03-15.  If there is anything to consider when making a
theora release, plesae mention it in
<URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora/-/merge_requests/30 >.  My
message to <URL: https://lists.xiph.org/mailman/listinfo/theora > did
not get through, so I suspect someone else should post about a new
version there.  I have no idea how to update <URL: https://theora.org/ >,
given that its content do not match
<URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora-website >.  Perhaps some of
you know how to do it? (Note, given the lack of response so far on this
mailing list, I assume there are no readers here and mostly post status
updates for the record. :)

I plan to announce the new version on <URL: https://xiph.org/theora/ >
and my own blog.

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen

The new theora relase has been tagged in master, and an update of the
xiph.org web site is requiested in
<URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/xiph-website/-/merge_requests/15 >.
I still have no idea how to update <URL: https://theora.org/ >,
given that its content do not match
<URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora-website >.

As soon as the release tarball has been copied from
<URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora/-/jobs/30795/artifacts/browse >
to <URL: https://downloads.xiph.org/releases/theora/ > I will announce
the new version on my blog.  It would be great if someone able to post
to the theora at xiph.org mailing list could announce it there.

I decided to go with the version number 1.2.0beta1 and not 1.2.0 because
the issues raised in <URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora/-/issues/2325
>
and <URL: https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/theora/-/issues/2327 > are still
not solved.  I plan to wrap up the 1.2.0 release in two weeks and hope
someone figured out what is going on there by then.

This is the release entry from CHANGES in the source:

libteora 1.2.0beta1 (2025 March 15)
- Bumped minor SONAME versions as <codec.h> methods changed constness
  of arguments.
- Updated libogg dependency to version 1.3.4 for ogg_uint64_t.
- Updated doxygen setup.
- Updated autotools setup and support scripts (#1467 #1800 #1987 #2318
  #2320).
- Added support for RISC OS.
- Fixed mingw build (#2141).
- Improved ARM support.
- Converted SCons setup to work with Python 3.
- Introduced new configure options --enable-mem-constraint and
  --enable-gcc-sanitizers.
- Fixed all known compiler warnings and errors from gcc and clang.
- Improved examples for stability and correctness.
- Variuos speed, bug fixes and code quality improvements.
  - Fixed build problem with Visual Studio (#2317).
  - Avoids undefined bit shift of signed numbers (#2321, #2322).
  - Avoids example encoder crash on bogus audio input (#2305).
  - Fixed musl linking issue with asm enabled (#2287).
  - Fixed some broken clamping in rate control (#2229).
  - Added NULL check _tc and _setup even for data packets (#2279).
  - Fixed mismatched oc_mb_fill_cmapping11 signature (#2068).
  - Updated the documentation for theora_encode_comment() (#726).
  - Adjusted build to Only link libcompat with dump_video (#1587).
  - Corrected an operator precedence error in the visualization
    code (#1751).
  - Fixed two spelling errors in the comments (#1804).
  - Avoid negative bit shift operation in huffdec.c (CVE-2024-56431).
- Improved library documentation and specification text.
- Adjusted library dependencies so libtheoraenc do not depend on
  libtheoradec.
- Handle fallout from CVE-2017-14633 in libvorbis, check return value
  in encoder_example and transcoder_example.

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen