[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] Dynamic plugins loading

[Anssi Hannula]

On 14.11.2010 18:28, compn wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Nov 2010 15:43:36 +0100, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 09:01:50AM +0200, Anssi Hannula wrote:
>>> On 14.11.2010 05:23, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>>>> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 04:34:56AM +0200, Anssi Hannula wrote:
>>>>> On 13.11.2010 02:52, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>>>>>> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 01:05:50AM +0200, Anssi Hannula wrote:
>>>>>>> On 13.11.2010 00:26, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 10:48:59PM +0200, Anssi Hannula wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 02.11.2010 15:09, Diego Biurrun wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Nov 02, 2010 at 02:23:56PM +0200, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Personally I think it's a shame that FFmpeg is not shipped in such
>>>>>>>>>>> important distributions just because of this reason.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> How many people here have even heard of meego and how many use Fedora
>>>>>>>>>> (on their desktops)?  Nowadays FFmpeg is available in all mainstream
>>>>>>>>>> distributions, it's just the fringe ones that are missing, see
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FFmpeg_distribution_status
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> BTW, if you have information to contribute to that package, let me know.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Ok, here goes:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> == Mandriva ==
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The packages in 2010.1 and later have the aac decoder and encoder
>>>>>>>>> disabled. The packages in 2010.0 and older are uncrippled.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Does anyone know why they disabled them?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Because faad is not allowed in Mandriva, AAC decoding is presumed as
>>>>>>> unallowed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> do you have some link to related discussion or a changelog for their ffmpeg
>>>>>> package?
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's the commit that disabled aac, but there is not much info there:
>>>>> http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/packages?view=revision&revision=548077
>>>>>
>>>>> Here's a mailing list post:
>>>>> http://lists.mandriva.com/cooker/2010-05/msg00374.php
>>>>>
>>>>> When I asked why he didn't disable everything else as well, he said that
>>>>> someone should tell him what is allowed and what is disallowed.
>>>>
>>>> someone should show him that patent about XOR or that one about clicking
>>>> buttons
>>>
>>> Well, obviously he doesn't want to enable anything that hasn't been
>>> allowed in Mandriva, unless he is told otherwise.
>>
>> hmm, do you also have a link handy to discussions that lead to faa* removial?
>> thats interresting because if its not patents but copyright issues which is
>> actually more likely with faad/faac then this would not apply to ffmpeg and
>> wouldnt be a reason to disable aac support in ffmpeg

It is indeed for patent issues (or at least everyone at Mandriva
currently thinks so; same as with lame, x264, amr). However, it was not
removed, it simply was never there. faad2 was added to PLF repo in 2002
which predates my involvement by several years, and any discussion was
probably on the maintainers' mailinglist which didn't have public
archives back then.

> this will probably be solved quicker if someone reports a bug or
> posts a mail to mandriva, instead of reading old discussions and
> cvslogs.

Probably.

Looks to me like such a discussion would probably just lead to even more
removed codecs (Fedora-style), though, but maybe even that is better
than the current ambiguity, don't know.
Maybe if one had good reasoning and persuasion skills.. ;)

> i was unable to find mandriva legal information.

What do you mean by legal information?

The patent policy is outlined here:
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Development/Packaging/Licenses#Patent-encumbered_software
(the only section on that page which is not out-of-date, apparently)

> maybe best bet
> is to file a bugzilla at https://qa.mandriva.com

Probably not, it would just be lost.
The best place for a discussion would probably be the main development
mailing list:
https://ml.mandriva.net/wws/info/cooker

(Or a private mail to Eugeni, in case a bigger discussion is unwanted)

> 
> some bugzilla posts on the subject:
> 
> https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=38863
> -------- Comment #1 From G?tz Waschk on 2008-03-13 18:23:14 CEST
> -------- 	
> 
> The aac decoder is not included for software patent reasons. You'll
> have to get the xine-faad package from a third party repository.
> 
> https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=38160
> -------- Comment #4 From G?tz Waschk on 2008-02-26 15:45:28 CEST
> -------- 	
> 
> Sergio, if you are working for Mandriva QA, you should be able to talk
> to Mandriva Legal about this. faad support was disabled because it is
> patented.
> 
> 
> https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=59567
> -------- Comment #5 From Ahmad Samir (triage team) on 2010-05-31
> 18:30:20 CEST -------- 	
> 
> I'd say it's still invalid, faad isn't in the mdv repos for patent
> issues (mplayer support for faad will be disabled in the mdv build,
> again as it's patent encumbered).

(for the record, this last comment means ffmpeg aac decoder, not libfaad)

-- 
Anssi Hannula