Bug#440702: ffmpeg: surprise removal of MPEG2 encoding capability

[Cyrille Chépélov]

Package: ffmpeg
Version: 0.cvs20070307-6
Severity: important


#439897 notwithstanding, version 0.cvs20070307-6 of the package added a
debian/strip.sh script to disable MPEG2 encoding capabilities. It might not
yet be disabled in all scenarios, but it has been disabled in an important
capability, making it useless to a large class of users in a specific
locale.

Precisely, encoding on the fly as a stream output has been broken from the
point of view of vlc, which breaks freeplayer. See bugs #440216, #440508.
Yet, apart from this excerpt from the changelog.Debian:
  * Add debian/strip.sh to strip ffmpeg upstream source disabling mpeg
    based encoders as discussed with ftp-master at debconf7
there appears to be zero information about the rationale for this removal in
/usr/share/doc/ffmpeg, not even patents.txt.

Please state the rationale for this removal, in a less terse way.

Thanks.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (800, 'testing'), (600, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22.1 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to fr_FR.UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages ffmpeg depends on:
ii  libavcodec1d            0.cvs20070307-6  ffmpeg codec library
ii  libavformat1d           0.cvs20070307-6  ffmpeg file format library
ii  libavutil1d             0.cvs20070307-6  ffmpeg utility library
ii  libc6                   2.6.1-1          GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libfreetype6            2.3.5-1+b1       FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libimlib2               1.3.0.0debian1-4 powerful image loading and renderi
ii  libsdl1.2debian         1.2.11-9         Simple DirectMedia Layer
ii  libswscale1d            0.cvs20070307-6  ffmpeg video scaling library

ffmpeg recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information