Providing non-stripped ffmpeg libraries

[Reinhard Tartler]

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.

>> 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)

> 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.

-- 
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4