[LAU] ffmpeg or libav

[Lorenzo Sutton]

On 13/01/13 10:13, Dan MacDonald wrote:
> In all three of these examples it wasn't the fault of the Debian 
> maintainers that these alternate versions get used, it was the authors 
> of the software switching from Free a software license such as the GPL 
> to one that the Debian social contract no longer considers free or 
> trying to enforce copyright on corporate logos or whatever.
AFAIK, ffmpeg is (L)GPL, depending on presence or not of certain 
encoders/decoders:

"FFmpeg is free software licensed under the LGPL or GPL depending on 
your choice of configuration options. If you use FFmpeg or its 
constituent libraries, you must adhere to the terms of the license in 
question. You can find basic compliance information and get licensing 
help on our license and legal considerations page." [1]

I don't *think* ffmpeg got deprecated in favour of libav on Debian for 
license issues. The author of the "The FFmpeg/Libav situation" posted by 
the OP seems to suggest the decision was simply based on personal 
preference to Libav by tht maintainer.

As a consequence my ffmpeg (+ jack) screen recording script (and jack 
screen recording in general) is now broken for since months [2] :)

>
> I for one am glad that Debian has some standards here and is willing 
> to maintain them. If you happen not to like it and you are pro 
> copyrights and non-free software then you are free to use Ubuntu, Red 
> Hat or another distro that is more open to non-free or coryright software.
Debian also has 'non-free'...

BTW, if you are pro-GPL you *are* pro-copyright. Just read the GPL 
carefully and you'll see what I mean [3]

Also notice the absence of Debian from the "Free GNU/Linux 
distributions" [4] on the gnu.org website.

Lorenzo.


[1] http://ffmpeg.org/index.html
[2] http://linuxaudio.org/mailarchive/lau/2012/11/17/194326
[3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
[4] http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html