[MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH] Add giflib 5 support

[Reimar Döffinger]

On 04.05.2013, at 19:21, Andïï <gnu.andrew.rocks at gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 4, 2013 7:34 AM, "Reimar Döffinger" <Reimar.Doeffinger at gmx.de> wrote:
>> 
>> On 02.05.2013, at 11:50, Andrew John Hughes <gnu_andrew at member.fsf.org>
> wrote:
>> 
>>> Trying again...
> http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/2013-April/071595.html
>>> 
>>> The attached patch allows mplayer to be built with giflib 5.  Tested
>>> against 1.1 and SVN.
>> 
>> Sorry, I forgot to ask a few things.
>> I was wondering if there is much "need" for it, since FFmpeg does support
> gif quite fully I think. Basically I am curious why you care :-)
> 
> If giflib has been upgraded to version 5, mplayer won't even detect the
> presence of giflib and support won't be compiled. The patch fixes configure
> to detect version 5 too, and the consequent build errors from code.

So far it's obvious, but who cares if giflib is enabled or not.

>> This is related to whether there is much of a point in keeping support
> for the old version.
> 
> Support for <5 needs to be kept for those who haven't yet upgraded.

I see no obvious "need", we can just drop support for it.
I wanted to know what reasons there are to continue to support versions < 4.
Since I consider our giflib support fairly pointless (less relevant than aalib even for example) there should be a fairly good reason to add to the maintenance burden by keeping support for old versions instead of telling users "upgrade if you really need it".