x265 4.3-1

Package Information

Description	H.265/HEVC video stream encoder x265 is a commandline encoder for creating H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video streams. x265 supports the following features: * full prediction and transform quad-tree recursion supported * adaptive B-frame placement * B-frames as references / arbitrary frame order * CABAC (context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding) entropy coding * supports all Intra block types * supports all Inter P partitions * supports all Inter B partitions from 64x64 down to 8x4 * weighted prediction for P slices * multiple reference frames * scenecut detection * parallel encoding on multiple CPUs
Maintainer	Debian Multimedia Maintainers <debian-multimedia@lists.debian.org>
Changed By	Sebastian Ramacher <sramacher@debian.org>
Sponsor	sramacher@debian.org
Distribution	experimental
Architecture	any all
VCS	git: https://salsa.debian.org/multimedia-team/x265.git (browse)
Popcon Installs	124661
Binary NEW	Yes (new binary packages of a source already in sid)
Tracker	https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/x265
Uploaded	2 hours ago

New Package Report

.changes◂

Source	x265
Version	4.3-1
Changed-By	Sebastian Ramacher <sramacher@debian.org>
Architecture	all amd64 source
Distribution	experimental
Date	Sat, 14 Nov 2026 18:35:11 +0100

Changelog◂

x265 (4.3-1) experimental; urgency=medium
 .
   [ Sebastian Ramacher ]
   * New upstream version 4.3
   * SONAME bump: libx265-216 -> libx265-217
 .
   [ Diederik de Haas ]
   * Switch to new home on GitHub

.dsc◂

Package-List	libx265-217 deb libs optional arch=any libx265-dev deb libdevel optional arch=any libx265-doc deb doc optional arch=all profile=!nodoc profile:v1=!nodoc x265 deb video optional arch=any
Section	libs
Priority	optional
Component	main

debian/copyright◂

Format: https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
Upstream-Name: x265
Source: https://github.com/Multicorewareinc/x265

Files: *
Copyright: 2013-2025, MulticoreWare, Inc
2003-2013, x264 project
2013-2017, x265 project
License: GPL-2+

Files: debian/*
Copyright: 2016, Ondřej Nový <onovy@debian.org>
2014-2025, Sebastian Ramacher <sramacher@debian.org>
License: GPL-2+

Files: source/dynamicHDR10/*
Copyright: 2013-2020, MulticoreWare, Inc
2017, Samsung Electronics, DMS Lab, Samsung Research America and Samsung Research Tijuana
License: GPL-2+

Files: source/dynamicHDR10/json11/*
Copyright: 2013, Dropbox, Inc
License: Expat

Files: source/compat/getopt/*
Copyright: 1987-2001, Free Software Foundation, Inc
License: LGPL-2.1+

Files: source/common/x86/x86inc.asm
Copyright: 2013-2020, MulticoreWare, Inc
2005-2014, x264 project
License: ISC

Files: source/cmake/FindVLD.cmake
Copyright: 2013-2020, MulticoreWare, Inc
License: Expat

License: Expat
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
.
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

License: GPL-2+
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
details.
.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
.
On Debian systems, the full text of the GNU General Public
License version 2 can be found in the file
`/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2'.

License: ISC
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
-ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

License: LGPL-2.1+
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
.
This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
Lesser General Public License for more details.
.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
.
On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU Lesser General Public
License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL-2.1 file.

DFSG Assistant LLM REVIEW 1 blocker, 0 important, 2 minor

This is an LLM based review using a Debian Inference based workflow. It was not written by a member of the DFSG team and has not been checked by one. It is not a decision on the package: it may be wrong, and it may have missed things.

Reviewed 1 hour ago.

Report◂

DFSG NEW review for x265 version 4.3-1

Summary

Licensing is DFSG-compliant and debian/copyright is accurate: No
Packaging is of good quality: Yes
Issues: 1 blocker, 0 important, 2 minor
debian/watch: version 5
debian/copyright: machine-readable
Scan before the review: nothing found

Licensing

The DFSG side is fine: everything is GPL-2+ except four small groups (getopt under LGPL-2.1+, json11 and FindVLD.cmake under Expat, x86inc.asm under ISC), all free and mutually compatible with the GPL-2+ binary. debian/copyright is DEP-5 and complete in its licence texts, but it is inaccurate for source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S: that file is ISC-licensed (like x86inc.asm, which does have its own stanza) and is also copyrighted by Loongson Technology Corporation Limited, while Files: * declares it GPL-2+ and the holder is nowhere named.

Packaging

The packaging is conventional and correct: debhelper compat 14 with dh-sequence-sphinxdoc, hardening=+all, a three-bit-depth CMake/ninja build, an up-to-date symbols file, a documented SONAME bump to libx265-217, a working autopkgtest and a doc package whose paths match what debhelper's doc-main-package logic produces. Standalones and substvars are fine at compat 14. Only one minor documentation problem: debian/x265.1 is a 2014 man page headed "x265 1.4" whose NAME section calls the program x256, and it omits options x265 has had for many releases.

Issues

blocker licensing 1. Files: * in debian/copyright declares source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S GPL-2+, but the file is ISC-licensed ◂

Files: debian/copyright:5-9, source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S:5-19,24
Basis: checked, in the package or with a reference tool
Evidence: loongson_asm.S: * Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. and, at line 24, This file is a LoongArch assembly helper file and available under ISC license. debian/copyright has no stanza for the file, so the catch-all Files: * applies with License: GPL-2+, while the analogous file source/common/x86/x86inc.asm does get License: ISC (debian/copyright:29-33).
Problem: debian/copyright states the wrong licence for this file. Being a source file it is part of the distributed source package, so the licence declared for it must be the one it is under, not a more restrictive compatible one; the file is ISC, not GPL-2+. The same stanza omission also drops its holder (see the next issue).
Fix: Add a stanza, e.g. Files: source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S with Copyright: 2024, Loongson Technology Corporation Limited / 2013-2024, MulticoreWare, Inc and License: ISC (the ISC stand-alone paragraph is already present).

minor licensing 2. debian/copyright does not name Loongson Technology Corporation Limited, holder of source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S ◂

Files: debian/copyright:5-8, source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S:5-6
Basis: checked, in the package or with a reference tool
Evidence: File header: * Copyright (c) 2024 Loongson Technology Corporation Limited; debian/copyright's holder lists contain only MulticoreWare, Inc, the x264 project, the x265 project, Dropbox, the FSF, Samsung and the two Debian maintainers.
Problem: The ISC licence requires the copyright notice to be kept, and the holder is not named anywhere in debian/copyright. Debian Policy 2.3 (read with the policy tool) requires the notice only for files shipped in a binary package: debian/rules sets -DENABLE_ASSEMBLY=OFF for every architecture except amd64, arm64 and riscv64, and source/common/CMakeLists.txt:215 compiles loongarch64 sources only if(ENABLE_ASSEMBLY AND LOONGARCH64), so this file reaches no binary package Debian builds; the omission is therefore minor, not a blocker, though a complete copyright file should name the holder.
Fix: Name the holder in the new stanza for the file (see the licence issue above).

minor packaging 3. debian/x265.1 is a 2014 man page headed "x265 1.4" that names the program x256 in its NAME section ◂

Files: debian/x265.1:1-7, debian/x265.manpages:1
Basis: checked, in the package or with a reference tool
Evidence: .TH "x265" "1" "November 2014" "x265 1.4" "User Commands"; .SH NAME followed by x256 \- encoder for creating H.265/HEVC video streams and x256 is a commandline encoder .... Options the current CLI has are absent, e.g. --hdr10, --dhdr10-info, --master-display, --max-cll (source/x265cli.cpp:78,338,340,366) have no entry in the page.
Problem: The page is installed as man1/x265.1 (debian/x265.manpages) and documents version 1.4 of the program in a 4.3 package; its NAME section names a program called x256, which is what whatis and apropos index, and a large part of the current command-line interface is undocumented. Policy 12.1 requires a manual page for each program, and one describing a twelve-year-old interface is of little use.
Fix: Regenerate the page from the current x265 --help output (or from doc/reST/cli.rst) and correct the NAME section to x265.

Verified ◂

The pre-scan's only flagged file, source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S, is accounted for by the two licensing issues above; its MulticoreWarae, Inc spelling is upstream's typo of MulticoreWare, Inc, which the Files: * stanza names (year drift only), and the same typo in source/common/x86/x86inc.asm is covered by that file's own stanza.
Licence inventory of the whole tree (source/, doc/, build/, .github/, top level; .pc/ and debian/cargo-checksum.json ignored): every file is GPL-2+ (either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version) except source/common/x86/x86inc.asm (ISC, correctly covered by its own stanza), source/common/loongarch64/loongson_asm.S (ISC, the blocker above), source/compat/getopt/getopt.c and getopt.h (LGPL-2.1+, covered by Files: source/compat/getopt/*), source/dynamicHDR10/json11/* (Dropbox Expat with its own LICENSE.txt, covered), and source/cmake/FindVLD.cmake (Expat, covered). Greps for Apache, MPL, BSD "Redistribution and use" clauses, CeCILL, OpenSSL and non-commercial/no-modification wording found nothing else.
GPL-2+, LGPL-2.1+, Expat and ISC are mutually compatible in the one binary; x265 is dual-licensed GPL-2+/commercial and the packaging uses GPL-2+, so no DFSG problem arises from the dual licensing or the commercial proprietary license lines in every file header.
src/compat/getopt's LGPL-2.1+ text is reproduced in source/compat/getopt/LGPL.txt and the licence is referenced to /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL-2.1; GPL-2 and the Expat/ISC texts are present in debian/copyright.
No built or generated files, minified code, PDFs, images, fonts or archives in the tree (the pre-scan listed none; extension-based globs found none); doc/reST/build is absent and debian/clean removes it, and build/ holds only upstream build scripts. debian/rules compiles the documentation from doc/reST with sphinx, matching doc/requirements.txt.
doc/reST/introduction.rst:82 All rights reserved is about the x265 trademark and logo, not a licence restriction; source/common/param.cpp:46-55 carries the public-domain notice of the strtok_r excerpt it adapts.
source/common/lowpassdct.cpp:2 reads Copyright (C) 2017 with no holder and lists its author (Humberto Ribeiro Filho) under GPL-2+, so there is no notice that debian/copyright omits; source/compat/msvc/stdint.h has no licence header at all but is an MSVC-only type shim never built on Debian and is covered by Files: *.
The Samsung Electronics, DMS Lab, ... line in the source/dynamicHDR10/* stanza has no counterpart in any file there (all dynamicHDR10 files are MulticoreWare GPL-2+); an over-attribution, not a violation, so not reported as an issue.
debian/libx265-doc.doc-base's /usr/share/doc/libx265-dev/html paths are correct despite libx265-doc.docs shipping the html: at compat 14 dh_installdocs maps libx265-doc to libx265-dev as its doc-main-package (Dh_Lib.pm compute_doc_main_package), so the files land in /usr/share/doc/libx265-dev inside libx265-doc, matching libx265-dev's Suggests: libx265-doc.
debian/control: compat 14 means dh_gencontrol adds the relationship substvars itself, so the binary stanzas without Depends are correct; dh-sequence-sphinxdoc in Build-Depends-Indep is honoured (Dh_Lib.pm reads dh-sequence from Build-Depends, -Arch and -Indep); Standards-Version 4.7.4 against the reviewing system's Policy 4.7.4.1 is not an issue.
debian/libx265-217.symbols matches the SONAME 217 and x265_api_get_217/encoder_open_217 introduced in 4.3; debian/rules builds the 8/10/12-bit libraries and combines the static one with debian/arscript (cleaned via debian/clean); hardening=+all is set; the four patches are relevant (two on CMake architecture detection, one removing the dlopen path, one for arm), each with From/Date/Subject headers.
debian/tests/control's Depends: ffmpeg, x265 matches what encode-testimage uses (ffmpeg, ffprobe, x265), with allow-stderr; changelog's top entry is 4.3-1 to experimental with the SONAME bump noted, and debian/gbp.conf, source/format (3.0 quilt), Vcs-* and Homepage are consistent.
Upstream's x265Version.txt still records releasetag: 4.2 with distance 3, so the built x265_version_str and libx265.pc's Version derive 4.2 although the Debian version is 4.3; that is an upstream artifact, not a packaging error.
uscan found the packaged version as the newest upstream release (upstream 4.3, packaged 4.3).
Every pointer of debian/copyright to /usr/share/common-licenses names a file that is there (GPL-2, LGPL-2.1).

Not confirmed ◂

Whether the 4.3 orig tarball is upstream's release tarball or a snapshot three commits after the 4.2 tag, which x265Version.txt suggests; the version string built from it would show it.

Proposed changes ◂

None.

Uploader's response to the LLM review

Waiting for the uploader's response until 2026-11-15 21:03 UTC, because the review found serious issues.

Other Reviews of this Package

Version	Hash	Allocated	Completed	Reviewer	Status	Details
4.2-1	b7790e3a…	2026-06-26 11:52	2026-06-26 11:53	mechtilde	accepted	VIEW

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