[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 1/2] avcodec: Add interface to motion estimation

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

wm4 <nfxjfg <at> googlemail.com> writes:

> Oh yes, politically Libav wasn't successful.

Just to make sure I don't misunderstand you:
Gentoo and Debian did not switch from avconv 
to FFmpeg for technical reasons, but only for 
political reasons?
And, consequently, the changes from FFmpeg to 
avconv were purely technically and not politically 
motivated?

> Keep in mind that FFmpeg merged _everything_ 
> from Libav

I believe you know very well that this is not true.
And I find it funny that you wrote a long 
justification above why everything had to be 
merged and here, you use it as an argument why 
FFmpeg is bad (that's at least how I read it).

I was always very angry reading this argument 
in your blog post and I always thought you are 
among the strongest supporters of avconv. Funny 
that this very blog post was one of the main 
reasons why the distros switched...

> So there are 3 ways to fix something:
> 1. Never change the API. Well, now you can't fix the API, have fun.
> 2. Add new APIs and maintain the old APIs concurrently. You will have
>    to maintain a dozen of API revisions, and users will also have to
>    deal with an API that provides the same thing under dozens of
>    APIs. What could possibly go wrong?
> 3. You add improved APIs, deprecate the old ones, and finally remove
>    them.
> 
> Which do you pick? If it's 3, what is your complaint again?

In reality, it is of course 3, but as said above, 
users switched from avconv from FFmpeg because we 
tried to do 2, so it cannot be as bad as you paint 
it.
But I believe this was not the issue in this thread 
afaiu.

> The mess also slows down FFmpeg development.

So do you want faster or slower development?
I fear you will have to decide...

[...]

I don't really understand the rest of your post, 
but it sounds very, very similar to what you 
suggest so strongly (and with changing arguments!) 
to "fix" your issue yesterday;-)

In the end, there is only one question remaining:
If avconv did such a wonderful job, why didn't you 
support them? Don't you agree (now) that they would 
have needed it?

Carl Eugen