Main Inclusion Report for Jack-Audio-Connection-Kit (JACK)

Requirements

1. Availability: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/j/jack-audio-connection-kit; Available for all supported architectures.

2. Rationale:

   • Build dependency of the 'jack' alsa plugin (now disabled in libasound2-plugins, see launchpad bugs 197957 and 84900)

   • Many bugs have been filed against various audio servers currently in Main (xine, alsa, portaudio, pulseaudio) requesting that the JACK bridge/plugin/output/etc... be turned on or compiled into the package - this is not possible without the inclusion of Jack in Main. Bugs #152487, #84900, #109659, and #360590 (this may not be a complete list, and duplicates of most of these have been filed)

   • The libffado drivers for firewire soundcards ( http://www.ffado.org ) are only supported by the Jack driver. This makes these common, pro, semi-pro, and hobbyist audio cards inaccessible for most applications without the previous audio server bridges/plugins/outputs to jack available. Owners of these cards must recompile major audio drivers in order to get basic Ubuntu sound

3. Jack is an audio server designed specifically for professional reliable audio signals. This is not a duplicate server clogging up the "audio mess", which some people believe exists in Linux, it is a specialty tool for musicians, audio engineers, and anyone using Linux for professional audio. (In-fact if anything, allowing the aforementioned bugs to get fixed would clean up a large chunk of the "audio mess" which some believe exists. It would at least stop a large segment of people from griping so loudly about and attempting to remove PulseAudio.)

4. shrinking the Ubuntu source package delta to Debian's

5. Security:

   • No CVE entries known.

   • No Secunia history known

   • Only binaries in jackd, none of which are suid/sgid. Note: realtime capabilities are nowadays granted to users/groups though /etc/security/limits.conf

   • jackd is of course a daemon, but is not automatically started on startup
   • jackd does not listen for network connections itself - it requires the installation of a separately available 'netjack' driver for this.
   • No source code review is performed that we know of.

6. Quality assurance:

   • In what situation does the package not work out of the box without configuration?
     • Jack needs some audio output device to connect to in order to start. This might fail if such a device is not available, or if another process is keeping a device occupied that does not support multiple concurrent connections.

     • Some configuration may be required for optimal performance (i.e. low latency) depending on the audio card used. Configuration instruction are available at help.ubuntu.com.

   • Does the package ask any debconf questions highter than priority 'medium'?
     • Jack does not ask any debconf questions.

   • Debian bugs: only wishlist items are open right now

   • Maintenance in Debian: Is calm

   • Upstream: Is vigorous

   • Upstream bug tracker: nothing particularly relevant or critical there either it seems

   • Hardware: This package deals well with most commonly available consumer, semi- and professional audio cards.

   • Is there a test suite in the upstream source or packaging? No

   • Is it enabled to run in the build? N/A

7. UI standards:

   • User-visible strings are internationalized using standard gettext system ?
   • Package with translatable strings builds a PO template during package build ?

   • End-user applications ship a desktop file ? Yes

8. Standards compliance:

   • FHS, Debian Policy compliance ?

   • Debian library packaging guide standards compliance ?

   • Packaging system (debhelper/cdbs/dbs) ? Patch system ? Any packaging oddities ?

9. Dependencies:

   • ...
   • Are these all in main ?

10. Maintenance:

    • How much maintenance is this package likely to need ? (Simple packages may largely take care of themselves; complex packages will need dedicated developers paying attention to them.) Little maintenance should be required

    • Who is responsible for monitoring the quality of this package and fixing its bugs ? Are they Ubuntu or Debian developers ? Upstream developers along with Debian and Ubuntu developers

    • Who is the package bug contact in Ubuntu? (Needs one if its a nontrivial package which does not fully maintain itself through Debian) Ubuntu Studio developers

11. Background information:

    • The general purpose and context of the package should be clear from the package's debian/control file. If it isn't then please explain. JACK is a sound server that handles real-time, low latency audio (and MIDI) allowing connections to a number of different applications to an audio device, as well as allowing them to share audio between themselves.

    • What do upstream call this software ? Has it had different names in the past ? JACK, Jack Audio Connection Kit or simply jackd

12. Internationalization:

    • Are graphical applications translatable? Do they support gettext? GUI is not implicitly included with JACK

Reviewers

MIR bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/BUGNUMBER

Author: Scott Lavender * Contributor: Arnout 'raboof' Engelen