[FFmpeg-user] I'm playing audio on my Linux PC from the WWW. Can I record it to a file with ffmpeg?

[Phil Rhodes]

> I don't understand.  Why do you think it isn't ffmpeg?  

There is an ongoing political dispute going on between two factions who develop software that they both call "ffmpeg". Because of the nature of open source software, neither has any greater claim on being "the real ffmpeg" than the other.

Because ffmpeg, of either persuasion, is open source software and both factions have access to the others' code, this is a catastrophically pointless effort in vanity-provoked dick-swinging. The achieves nothing other than confusing people like you and me, especially as Carl Eugen's responses are motivated by his personal leanings with respect to the disagreement. You could just as easily find someone who worked for the other team who would tell you exactly the same things about the version of ffmpeg that Carl Eugen claims to be the real one.

I could go on to explain how it's a ringing indictment of the leaderless model of software development promoted by open source, but sadly I don't know enough about the specific situation as it pertains to ffmpeg to go into further detail. Suffice it to say that despite the frequency with which people like to throw around legal threats with respect to open source software, nobody appears to be able to enforce their ownership of the name "ffmpeg".

The genesis of the problem - a split between two groups of people who previously collaborated - is shrouded in mystery and can really only be researched by reading a lot of mailing list archives and trying to guess what was said in the various personal emails which are referred to. Presumably it's too embarrassing to talk about publicly, but the result is the same either way. No matter which linux distro you use, someone will call you a lus3r and tell you to use a different one, and the situation is, as far as I can tell, the same with ffmpeg.

P