[packman] ffmpeg not in monolithic repository

[todd rme]

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 3:29 AM, İsmail Dönmez <idoenmez at suse.de> wrote:
> Dear Todd;
>
> On Wednesday, April 06, 2011 09:26:48 AM todd rme wrote:
> [...]
>> > Btw libav
>> > cherry picks from FFmpeg's tree anyway, its not automated, done by hand
>> > as it should be. So your point about FFmpeg being better is wrong.
>>
>> Are you saying Michael was lying when he said that ffmpeg has features
>> and bug fixes that libav does not have, while libav doesn't have any
>> features not present in ffmpeg?
>
> MN can live in his own imaginary world where ffmpeg takes over the whole world
> but currently libav & ffmpeg is at the same level feature wise.

So he was lying?

> Now they'll tell you that ffmpeg has video filters, those are dumped from
> mplayer directly, violates the code quality of libav/ffmpeg and possibly have
> many bugs in them.

This contradicts your above statement.  It doesn't matter where they
came from, and it doesn't matter how weird the formatting might be,
the filters are still features.  You can't just arbitrarily decide to
exclude features from the comparison because you don't like where they
came from.  If ffmpeg has the filters and libav doesn't, then by
definition ffmpeg has features that libav doesn't.

Your concern that there are "possibly" bugs isn't very convincing.  If
you had specific bugs that were a problem that would be a different
story, but anything could "possibly" have bugs.

> As you see, if ffmpeg if ever gets more advanced than libav then noone can
> argue about switching to ffmpeg.

But what we are discussing here isn't switching TO ffmpeg, it is
switching FROM ffmpeg to libav.  ffmpeg is the one that has been in
the packman repositories for a long time.  libav is the newcomer that
needs to convince everyone that they should abandon the long-standing
ffmpeg project.

So even if we grant your claim that they are the same in terms of
features (a claim you refuted yourself later), then by your own logic
we should stick with the ffmpeg package we have been using all along,
and switch to libav only when it has more features then ffmpeg.  Since
we have been using ffmpeg all along, libav needs to be the one to
justify the switch.

> All clear now?

I think so.  From what you are saying, ffmpeg has features libav
doesn't, but you don't want to include those features in the
comparison because you are against where the feature came from.

You also apparently seem to think that everyone should automatically
switch to libav even though there is no technical benefit to it, and
that it is the responsibility of the ffmpeg project to convince
everyone else not to switch.  This seems to me to be backwards of the
logical approach to such a situation, which is that the newcomer has
to justify itself, not the tried-and-true project.

-Todd