[FFmpeg-devel] On libavfilter: A Summary of Issues

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Sat, Oct 06, 2012 at 07:38:36PM -0400, Derek Buitenhuis wrote:
> This is a massive dealbreaker for any sort of filtering framework,
> especially if you want to write your own filters or work in any sort
> of dynamic way. Having to recompile is a massive hinderance and
> introduces annoying compatability issues for anyone wishing to
> use libavfilter and one of its filters, or a filter they've written
> themselves.

You know, that same argument comes up everywhere, with codecs (mostly
a thing of the past now), drivers, ...
Note that it was not long ago we (well, mostly Libav) removed the
possibility to load external stream implementations.
I don't work on libavfilter so don't care much, allowing thirdparty
plugins seems very far out of style for FFmpeg.
Now if you mean making libavfilter public API/ABI stable, that I
think is long overdue in my opinion...

> The other issue that the whole monolithic library thing creates is
> that any user who wants to distribute a plugin written for it
> -must- abide by the LGPL, at the very least. See 1) above.

Uh, what do you mean by that? They need to ship .o files and stuff
necessary to link against modified libavfilter versions, but nothing else.
Also at least for e.g. codecs registering the from externally is
possible, just not tested by us etc.