[Ffmpeg-devel] Using ffmpeg libs in an OSS project is a nightmare

[Kenneth Lavrsen]

I do not wish to include the ffmpeg sources as part of Motion for two reasons.

1. For the same reason that I do not build the program with the other libs 
we use like MySQL-client, PostgreSQL-client , libjpeg, glibc, libpthread, 
libz, etc etc.
Shared libraries. That is the smart way. ffmpeg also relies on shared libs.

2. You also have to remember that once you put application and library 
together as a full binary package, you expose yourself much more to the 
legal aspects of certain IP contained within ffmpeg. Motion is also 
distributed as binary RPMs and debian packages are being made also. Keeping 
things seperate is a good idea seen in that light. This is my deepest 
concern more than argument 1.

About manpower or funding.
I just offered to do the upload to Sourceforge 3 times a years. That is the 
real manpower required. And no funding needed. This is not a manpower 
issue. The issue is the ffmpeg core team to make a simple decision saying - 
OK - we will upload a tar.gz 3 times a year and give it a new version number.

I am not going to hang around here nagging you for days. I started this 
debate. I am argueing today hoping in the long run I can make you think 
about things. And my offer to upload things every 4 months and maintain a 
few wiki pages for the release note stands. You know where to find me.

I must admit that I may be ranting and be a real pain in the butt today.
But I am not alone. Many people have raised these issues before and with no 
result. So sometimes someone has to come by and provoke things a bit and 
start a real debate to get oppinions moving. As you say you are already 
aware of the issues. So lets help each other finding a simple compromise 
solution which hardly cost any resources (minutes not hours).

I don't think the discussion will lead much further today. I have already 
started repeating myself. Sleep on it a few days.

I will encourage that any follow-ups on this posting will ignore all the 
above and work in these repeated constructive suggestions below the bar.

-------------------------------

Would a fixed release schedule - let us say February 1st, June 1st, October 
1st where you know there is a fixed release be someone that would be useful 
and helpful to you?
(naturally one can delay it a few days if a severe bug has just been found 
and needs to be fixed and naturally one can do a quick follow up release if 
something really serious is broken. But something is always broken. And if 
it is a problem - the support answer will always be to download latest CVS 
snap. Noone will fix an old version.).

And to the developers of ffmpeg - would that really disturb your sleep 
knowing that every 4 month you work gets released with a new version number 
and a bunch of packagers create their packages for RH, Fedora, Suse, 
Gentoo, Debian etc etc?

And if any packagers are following this mailing list - would you prefer to 
package these scheduled releases instead of some random daily snaps?

Enjoy your weekend.
Kenneth





-- 
Kenneth Lavrsen,
Glostrup, Denmark
kenneth at lavrsen.dk
Home Page - http://www.lavrsen.dk