[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] Dynamic plugins loading

[Felipe Contreras]

On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 11:17 PM, Luca Barbato <lu_zero at gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 11/2/10 8:18 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 3:28 PM, Luca Barbato<lu_zero at gentoo.org> ?wrote:
>>> On 11/2/10 1:23 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>>>>
>>>> There is a need to package separately free, and patent encumbered
>>>> codecs. Right now that's impossible with FFmpeg, and that's the reason
>>>> it's not offered on Fedora, or MeeGo.
>>>
>>> That is a stupid excuse as pointed by ubuntu.
>>
>> Is it? Say Fedora provides ffmpeg-free-0.6, rpmfusion provides
>> ffmpeg-all-0.6, presumably making sure it obsoletes ffmpeg-free, that
>> might work. But then ffmpeg-free-0.7 is released, and there's ABI
>> breakage so applications are updated at the same time, but now updates
>> are blocked, because of ffmpeg-all-0.6.
>>
>> This looks like it would be a package maintenance hell.
>
> I'm not so proficient with rpm, in portage-speak there is the concept of
> virtual and I guess deb has the same thing.

No, there isn't (neither in deb, nor rpm).

> rpm doesn't have ffmpeg-$version that is aliased to ffmpeg-all ffmpeg-free
> so that once you have a package requiring ffmpeg-$ver the resolver will pick
> whatever satisfies the requirement within the virtual providers?

It might be possible to use 'alternatives' for that[1]. I hadn't
thought of that... I will explore that option. However, it's still not
ideal:

Currently, without leaving the UI:
 * Click search
 * Click install

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller

With alternatives:
 * Manually find and install the required package
 * Go to console, and configure the alternate

Obviously, the first one is more user friendly, the second one
requires documentation.

>> How? Having two separate packages? I don't think that would fly on
>> many distributions.
>
> works for ubuntu. For alternate implementations in Gentoo we provide slot
> and virtual (depending if you want one to replace the other or one stay
> aside the other)

Ubuntu ships FFmpeg already with most of what people need. It's only
for fringe cases where the second package is needed, which is
maintained by the community, and still, it's not straight-forward:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ffmpeg

>> According to you.
>
> Me, and apparently a good chunk of the downstream distributors of ffmpeg and
> upstream developers.

Surely all those people know the insides-out of Fedora, their
philosophies, technical constraints, and final user requirements.

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Alternatives

-- 
Felipe Contreras