Providing non-stripped ffmpeg libraries

[Andres Mejia]

On Monday 25 May 2009 03:37:38 Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> Andres Mejia <mcitadel at gmail.com> writes:
> > On Monday 25 May 2009 01:32:27 Reinhard Tartler wrote:
> >> Andres Mejia <mcitadel at gmail.com> writes:
> >> > I would like to bring back the issue of having an ffmpeg package in
> >> > non-free [1]. To me, it seems ftp-master is at least willing to
> >> > consider providing an unmodified form of ffmpeg in non-free with the
> >> > various mpeg and h26* encoders enabled.
> >>
> >> What makes you think so? From my private irc queries, Ganneff has
> >> indicated to me exactly the opposite. Moreover, public requests like
> >> #522373 are actively being ignored.
> >
> > Well, that's the impression I had from that email I mentioned. I really
> > wish these irc channels had public logs. It's mainly the reason I prefer
> > the mailing lists.
>
> I agree.
>
> > Anyway, what were the reasons for opposition? And who is Ganneff by
> > the way?
>
> Ganneff is Joerg Japert. He is the "main" Archive Administrator. I have
> no idea what his reasons are, I can only guess that he is frightened
> because of the media lobby that could sue him or debian.

Well if that's the case, then we should just upload. Eventually, we should get 
some response, right?

If it's about patents, well, there are quite a number of patent encumbered 
packages in non-free. For example, there's rar.

> >> The idea with the shlibs trick came originally from Loic Minier, I've
> >> implemented it then. I believe it was early 2008, but I have to search
> >> my local archives. I have a vague memory that we didn't consider your
> >> idea at that time, but TBH, I don't think this is technically possible
> >> with the neither the debian nor the ubuntu archive.
> >
> > Right, the package names have to be unique.
> >
> > In this case, we could still do the shlib trick, but with packages that
> > will depend on the ffmpeg libraries, have the unstripped libraries come
> > first before the stripped ones for the resulting dependencies.
> >
> > For example:
> > libavcodec-unstripped-52 | libavcodec52
> >
> > In this way, the unstripped libs resolve first for those users who
> > activate the non-free component in their sources.list.
>
> In ubuntu, there the documented way to get "things work" is to install
> the meta package 'ubuntu-restricted-extras'. If we only had a properly
> maintained 3rd party repository...
>
> (yes, I know that Fabian is working hard on that)

I use to work on debpool by the way, if that helps. I've since determined that 
it's better to start over from scratch, which is what I'm trying to do with 
hive.
http://gitorious.org/hive/hive

> > This of course assumes that an unstripped version of ffmpeg makes it
> > into Debian in the first place. I really would like to know what the
> > reasons are for not accepting ffmpeg unstripped in non-free.
>
> So do I. really.

-- 
Regards,
Andres