Debian Jessie GIMP + GAP issues

[wartisoc]

I have a 64 bit Debian Jessie 8.9, and just recently decided to install the gimp-gap package which -supposedly- adds some video/animation editing features to the GIMP. Problem is, these features seem to be completely broken . Attempting basically any action from the Video menu would result in things like:
- Frame numbers in the range of 40054432 for animated GIFs with only 70 frames.
- Total duration in the range of 26962:05:09 for animations that last only a few seconds; for non animated images it's worse since any action would return a duration like -35761:-23:-15.
- The plugin attempts to open unexistant images from my disk with names like 40054432.gif.
- Worse, some of the actions' previews randomly open some images from my disk, images I have not loaded into GIMP and for which I don't want any modifications when I select actions like "Resize frames", or worse "Delete frames".
The last 2 points are the ones that worry me the most since I don't want the software to randomly mess with my files.

I know some of you will tell me that this is a GIMP/GAP bug and not Debian related but the fact remains that Debian distributing such a broken piece of software is a perfect formula for disaster.

[deborah-and-ian]

Upgrade to Stretch?

[stevepusser]

It doesn't look like the Stretch version will be any better: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=866224

Maybe someone that knows how to make packages could find a newer version in a PPA and port it over to Debian...

[deborah-and-ian]

It's suspicious how many small packages are broken both in Jessie and Stretch. Thinking of e.g. the Xfce gtk3 themes.

[wartisoc]

I think such a package should be removed from Debian (the gimp-gap package, I mean). It's useless anyway. And there's a risk that some action that doesn't expect confirmation would mess with the user files .

[stevepusser]

It also may be that it's written to use an old version of ffmpeg. It ships with a static tarball archive of ffmpeg 0.5, which Debian removed from the source in favor of the system ffmpeg, which is now at 3.2.5 in Stretch.