[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] drop libamr support

[Diego Biurrun]

On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 09:21:24PM +0100, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> I've been thinking about libamr again while handling the SaffronEncoder
> and I am thinking more and more that we should drop libamr support
> outright.
> 
> [Reminder: libamr is copyrighted without any kind of license grant.   As
> a consequence it is non-free and unredistributable.]
> 
> Whatever binaries are created with libamr support are unredistributable.
> Nonetheless many are created and redistributed and I fear that most
> people are not doing this on purpose but are blissfully unaware of the
> consequences.
> 
> Another point is that while there is a convenient way to hook up libamr
> in FFmpeg the incentive to implement a native replacement will be low.
> 
> I fear we are not doing anybody a favor with what we currently have and
> that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
> 
> Anybody who desperately needs AMR support can go back to a revision with
> libamr support, people who wish to compare native replacements with the
> reference lib can do the same.
> 
> I vote for removing libamr.

Our configure now prints "unredistributable" for the license when
libamr* is enabled and you need to explicitly pass --enable-nonfree to
enable it.  Given that we require --enable-gpl to enable GPL code this
should be reasonable.

Diego