[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] fix build, avcodec: update OpenH264 header path

[Martin Storsjö]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2022, Daniel Pocock wrote:

>
>
> On 01/03/2022 10:19, Hendrik Leppkes wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 9:16 AM Daniel Pocock <daniel at pocock.pro> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> This updates the locations searched for the OpenH264 headers to be
>>> consistent with upstream
>>>
>>> Discussed here:
>>> https://github.com/cisco/openh264/pull/3415
>>>
>>> Due to the change in the pkgconfig file, it is possible to compile with
>>> either:
>>>
>>>   #include <openh264/codec_api.h>
>>>
>>> OR
>>>
>>>   #include <codec_api.h>
>>>
>>> but in this patch, I used the former.
>>>
>>
>> Which releases of the library have the updated location? Will older
>> releases still work, if so, which?
>
> This patch is very trivial and doesn't attempt to support older releases
> of OpenH264.

So far, ffmpeg has supported a range of versions of OpenH264, from 1.3 up 
to the latest version.

> Please keep in mind the OpenH264 code is patented

.. and how does that differ from the code in libavcodec?

> and not widely installed in Linux distributions.  Developers have to 
> download it directly each time they include it in a project.

> So there doesn't appear to be a compelling case to support many versions 
> concurrently.

First off, supporting one or more versions is kinda essential for being 
able to track down any regression in the combination of the two projects.

Then secondly, OpenH264 does provide binaries for the existing releases, 
with the extra benefit that if you have the users download the binary from 
Cisco, Cisco covers the patent license fee for that individual copy of the 
library. To be able to benefit from this, you need to build ffmpeg against 
one of the existing releases out there.

So TL;DR, just because _you_ don't see a reason for supporting older 
releases, please don't deprive others of the ability to do that.

So to support latest git master of OpenH264, we'd instead have to add a 
configure check to see what include path the library happens to use.

// Martin