[LAU] ffmpeg or libav

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 12:02 +0100, Lorenzo Sutton wrote:
> 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

Debian isn't GNU/Linux any more, it only does provide GNU/Linux and for
sure it's the most important port, but there's also a FreeBSD port.

http://www.debian.org/ports/

Has anybody tested Debian BSD? I'm playing with FreeBSD (not Debian's
FreeBSD) at the moment. I don't think it's ready for serious audio work,
but I might be mistaken, since I still set up FreeBSD, when ever I've
got the time to "play", so I'm not in a hurry with compiling everything
that's needed. FWIW, FreeBSD also does provide packages, but at the
moment there aren't packages for all releases.

However, Suse even deals with Bill Beelzebub and Debian instead takes
care about another *NIX, so we can choose what we do need.

Regards,
Ralf