On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 11:37 AM, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski <dominik@greysector.net> wrote:
Hi,

On Monday, 31 May 2010 at 10:34, salsaman wrote:
> Hi all,
> I am the main developer/maintainer of LiVES (http://lives.sourceforge.net).
>
> I recently noticed the information about LiVES on this page:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WishList#L-M
>
> The information give about LiVES is inaccurate/incorrect. First of all,
> LiVES is not dependant on ffmpeg. As in, you can perfectly well build and
> run the application without ffmpeg being present on either the build system
> or the end user system.

What codecs and containers is LiVES able to process without FFmpeg/MPlayer?


dv (with libdv), ogg/theora (although ffmpeg is required for vorbis encoding/decoding), mng (encoding only), animated gif.

 
> However, the ffmpeg libraries are recommended for end users, since LiVES
> will make indirect use of them (via mplayer) for decoding some video
> formats, and via mencoder for encoding some video formats.

Well, neither MPlayer nor MEncoder can't be included in any useful form
in Fedora. We have them in RPMFusion instead.

> I fail to see the reason for this to be sufficient cause for crossing out
> LiVES.

Is it useful without mplayer and mencoder binaries at all? What can it do
then?


You can edit dv, or you could for example load in an image sequence and encode it to ogg/theora.

 
> A long time ago, ffmpeg contained some allegedly patented code (AAC
> audio IIRC), however this code was removed from the core of ffmpeg at least
> 5 years ago.

Not true at all. FFmpeg contains a lot of code that implements standards
that depend on possibly patented "inventions". I've been following FFmpeg
development almost from the beginning (and I maintain FFmpeg packages in
RPMFusion) and I don't remember any code being removed from FFmpeg on the
basis that it was allegedly covered by patents. The AAC case you're referring
to was about licence compatibility, not patents. FAAC was distributed under
the GPLv2, but it turned out that it contained some code whose licence was
incompatible with the GPL, so FFmpeg stopped allowing enabling FAAC support
without --enable-nonfree, because binaries linked with libfaac are not
distributable.


Again, what patents are violated by the *core* of ffmpeg (with all non-free decoders/encoders disabled) ? I think the only codecs included in the core are probably snow, and the nut container format.

 
> If you don't believe me, then how is it that both ffmpeg and LiVES are in
> debian testing and unstable ? Please check for yourselves, and contact the
> debian legal team if you are still in doubt.

For some reason, Debian seems to include the decoding parts of various codecs
even though they may be covered by some patents. They don't ship any encoders
as far as I know, though. Anyway, even the decoders are not OK for Fedora.


It depends on which codecs. For example if they include only theora, dv, pcm and mjpeg decoding then there is no problem. Same with ogg and matroska container formats.

 
> It is particularly timely that I noticed this, as I would like to introduce
> the new packager for LiVES in Fedora, Harry Rickards (harry@linux.com).
> Harry is also the point of contact between LiVES and the debian multimedia
> team who are responsible for packaging LiVES for debian.
>
> I hope that you will correct the information on the wishlist page, stop
> spreading (unintentional ?) FUD about ffmpeg, and most importantly give
> Harry every assistance with the Fedora LiVES packages.

We welcome all new packagers with open hands. However, please check your
facts before going off on a rant and accusing people of spreading FUD.


When you can show me an actual example of a registered patent which the core of ffmpeg violates then I will stop. Until then I still regard it as FUD.


Salsaman.
 
Regards,

--
Fedora http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Rathann
RPMFusion http://rpmfusion.org | MPlayer http://mplayerhq.hu
"Faith manages."
       -- Delenn to Lennier in Babylon 5:"Confessions and Lamentations"