[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] avcodec/snowdec: Check intra block dc differences.

wm4 nfxjfg at googlemail.com
Wed Sep 6 12:55:41 EEST 2017


On Tue, 5 Sep 2017 22:14:39 -0300
James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 9/5/2017 5:38 AM, wm4 wrote:
> > On Tue, 5 Sep 2017 10:03:11 +0200
> > Clément Bœsch <u at pkh.me> wrote:
> >   
> >> On Mon, Sep 04, 2017 at 08:35:17PM +0200, wm4 wrote:
> >> [...]  
> >>>>>> Can't we just remove this codec? It has no use other than causing
> >>>>>> potential security issues and maintenance.      
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I agree about removing the encoder, but the decoder is needed for
> >>>>> existing streams. Unless everyone just argues it has no real world
> >>>>> samples for being an avcodec-only toy codec.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> If you send a patch removing the encoder without also trying to remove
> >>>>> all the things that currently depend on it (One or two filters i think)
> >>>>> then I'll +1 it. ffv1 and mpeg4 encoders are enough for any kind of
> >>>>> testing, fate or otherwise, that might require a native encoder.      
> >>>>
> >>>> I find it a bit offensive that people suggest to remove the encoder i
> >>>> maintain.    
> >>>
> >>> Can I add my own unused fringe codec with no users, as long as I
> >>> maintain it?    
> >>
> >> Is there any reason to be so obsessed with snow? There are plenty of other
> >> "fringe" codecs in the codebase that only one person in the world cared
> >> about 10 years ago. Snow is one of the rare wavelet codecs, and as a
> >> result is much more valuable than many random basic game flavored codecs.
> >> And somehow, no one ever mention those.  
> > 
> > Those game codecs have actually some use. There are files in the wild
> > that are available to many, and that aren't just demo/test files. But
> > it's true that all these game codecs bloat the codebase, cause
> > maintenance and security issues, and have little use. They barely have
> > a justification to exist too.  
> 
> Don't be one of those that go "h264/aac/mov is all ffmpeg should care
> about".

I didn't argue that at all. I'm arguing that FFmpeg probably shouldn't
support a codec that was used by 1 or 2 released games, and for which
we can't guarantee security. Obscure features are a pretty big and
popular attack surface.

That's very different from arguing that we should drop all codecs but 3.

> > 
> > The only argument for snow is that it's a nice ideas. It might serve as
> > some proof of concept. As a real codec, it appears to be unusable.
> >   
> >> I don't personally care about game codecs or snow myself (probably nobody
> >> does), but I don't support this snow/swscale/whatever-michael-did killing
> >> circle jerk. This really feels like some form of constant harassment (I'm
> >> not even talking about IRC), and that's not acceptable.  
> > 
> > Well, michael could just cut back on trying to force insane stuff. His
> > obstinate attitude to force ridiculous patches and defending them like
> > they're the only choice doesn't help. Even when we try to remove some
> > of his sins, he'll defend it to death, no matter how crazy and stupid
> > the code was (side data merging comes to mind).  
> 
> Seeing that stuff is effectively deprecated, i don't think he defended
> it to death. Everyone argued it was a pointless feature, and he
> ultimately conceded.

He only "conceded" after I put all of my energy into it, and even then
he was letting us know that he thought side data merging was great. And
of course this whole thing was not without claiming that side data
merging was part of the ABI, which is pure BS (but he probably did that
so that I had even more work with creating separate version guards).

Shit like this happens every fucking time. I'm tired of it, so excuse
me if I sometimes get "rude".

> > 
> > If you feel like what I'm doing is harassment, I can end my involvement
> > with michael to avoid this - but only if you stop him from doing bad
> > things.  
> 
> You're very critical of all his patches. In many cases you give a
> detailed technical explanation of why you disagree, but most times you
> just make a snarky comment or are otherwise kinda rude.
> Even when you were proven wrong (the runtime cpu flag stuff) you answer

I wasn't proven wrong in this case. You can change the CPU flags at
runtime, but, as I pointed out, it obviously doesn't work if there's
anything still "running". It shows that

 1. runtime modification doesn't really work, i.e. it's an obscure case
    that didn't work before, and all the heckmeck Michael is creating
    is probably only passive aggressive BS to "prove" his point
 2. the various API to change CPU flags are a bad idea, and we should
    go into the opposite direction

It blows my mind that some developer argues FFmpeg should adapt to
runtime CPU changes. This is obviously batshit, because it's highly
complex, the rest of _all_ the code doesn't handle it, and the API is
global mutable state anyway.

Getting back to this bit:

> You're very critical of all his patches. In many cases you give a
> detailed technical explanation of why you disagree, but most times you
> just make a snarky comment or are otherwise kinda rude.

In general, Michael often tends to post new patches with exactly the
same bad issues as past patches, even though there was lengthy
discussion about them, how they were bad, and how Michael shouldn't do
that. So excuse me if I don't repeat myself every time.

We had this discussion about fine grained error messages for fuzzed
samples before too. Several times. Michael doesn't learn, or most
likely, doesn't want to learn. It's rude to ignore our comments. Why are
you complaining about me again?

> I tried to find a common ground regarding the error messages in this
> thread an the other and almost got it. But then i fucked up by agreeing
> with you about removing snowenc which started this stupid branch of the
> discussion. So please, like Clement said, chill out. We gain nothing
> with all this and lose plenty.

What could we possibly lose at this point.


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