[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH v2] doc/developer: origin of tables should be documented.

[Zane van Iperen]

On Sat, 8 Aug 2020 19:57:09 +0200
"Nicolas George" <george at nsup.org> wrote:

> 
> Tables that were not just written by the code author are
> not actually source code, otherwise,
> "recode data..x1 < proprietary.o > source.c"
> would be enough to launder a proprietary blob into
> the source code.
> 
> Documenting the origin of the tables or the methods
> for their generation is necessary to let other developers
> take over if the original author is no longer available.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Nicolas George <george at nsup.org>
> ---
>  doc/developer.texi | 8 ++++++++
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)
> 
> 
> I count:
> 
> - Two objections, to which I have answered, and who have not given
>   follow up.
> 
> - One objection about a typo, I fixed "engineered" and proof-read
>   everything carefully.
> 
> - Two positive opinions.
> 

I'm apprehensive about this, especially in the case of
reverse-engineered tables. It should definitely be encouraged, but not
necessarily hard-required.

If you explicitly say "Reverse Engineered from so-and-so", that seems
essentially like putting a target on FFmpeg's back.

Case-in-point: No reference decoder/encoder exists, and the tables had
to be dumped from the application binary.

Zane