On Sun, Jun 29, 2003 at 05:11:58PM +0200, Sam Hocevar wrote: > Since the ffmpeg ITP (#157719) was closed almost one year ago, I > assume no one is interested anymore, thus this ITP. I use ffmpeg daily > and I am not satisfied with the reasons given for closing the ITP. If > anyone disagrees I'll gladly elaborate.
The reasons given for closing the ITP were moronic, however there is a more pressing problem. ffmpeg is in the same boat as mjpegtools, in that it implements algorithms such as mpeg-2 encoders, which are patented and aggressively enforced by the patent owners. Somebody will have to investigate all the algorithms it implements and see whether we can get away with distributing it or not (sometimes the patent owners allow free implementations; sometimes they forbid them outright, particularly when DRM is involved). Note that being patented isn't fundamentally an issue, but having the patent owner prohibit our distribution of the code is. That's not to say it can't be included in the distribution, but you've got some work to do first to find out. It may be necessary to gut some codecs. Also, it is probably not appropriate to build shared libraries at this time, since the API isn't stable (and upstream don't appear to understand this). -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing, `. `' | Imperial College, `- -><- | London, UK
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