[FFmpeg-devel] FFmpeg code Attribution

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 10:50:06PM -0400, Aaron Boxer wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 9:48 PM, Ricardo Constantino <wiiaboo at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > On 23 March 2016 at 22:35, Aaron Boxer <boxerab at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Back to my original point, what is the reasoning not to just switch to
> > > OpenJPEG?
> > Both OpenJPEG 1 and 2 are supported to add as external libraries in
> > FFmpeg. What do you mean by switching to OpenJPEG?
> >
> 
> 
> I mean abandoning FFmpeg j2k codec, which seems to be a less-featureful
> copy of OpenJPEG,
> and putting resources into fixing OpenJPEG issues and making it better.
> Since OpenJPEG
> has a much broader user community, this would help both FFmpeg users and
> many others.

I wonder if you mean only the encoder or also the decoder...
In general: competition and alternatives are good.
Every standard should have multiple viable implementations.
Of course if much code is shared/copied that weakens the argument
a lot.
However when it comes to decoders I do consider it important
for FFmpeg to have its own implementation even if there are
such shortcomings.
If for no other reason that having all implementations in
a shared code base, with shared concepts that allows to
compare and find common approaches much more easily seems
a very important thing to me which nobody else provides.
Every external codec re-invents their way of writing
bitstreams, VLC codes, ... making it hard to impossible
to share code or even concepts.
Plus there is a good chance that FFmpeg will still be
maintained by the time quite a few of those external
libraries have become unmaintained and suffered of bitrot.
In some ways I think I'd consider sharing test vectors
a possibly more important way of cooperating with
other projects than sharing code.