[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 3/6] avutil: delay removal of the PIX_FMT_* flags

[Ronald S. Bultje]

Hi Frank,

On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 2:28 PM, Frank Lömker <floemker at gmx.de> wrote:

>     http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi/2015/04/06


I think there's a pretty big misunderstanding here: you think we're just
frivolously changing API to annoy you. That's not the case. We're
changing/adding API to expose new features, fix namespacing conflicts or
allow for better quality or new types of optimizations. If you don't want
any of these, there's no need for you to update to new versions of ffmpeg,
and you can just stick to older ffmpeg releases, we have release branches
for that very purpose.

We're not keeping old and new APIs around for longer than the originally
guaranteed compatibility period (~2 years). This would just mean half of
our users get the good experience and the other half gets the bad,
depending on which API the version of their app uses. We don't want that.
We want everyone to have the very best experience that we can provide.

In one of my earlier emails, I already offered to help Debian out with
patches related to ffmpeg API changes in apps in their repos. I hereby
repeat that offer to non-Debian opensource applications, hopefully that
mutes the rest of the sentiment in that blog post, so we can move on and do
what's right for our users. As for what venue to use for such questions,
I'd recommend stackoverflow, but feel free to use this mailinglist of IRC
if you so prefer.

Ronald