[FFmpeg-devel] Reintroducing FFmpeg to Debian

[Russ Allbery]

wm4 <nfxjfg at googlemail.com> writes:
> Russ Allbery <rra at debian.org> wrote:

>> Note that all of the above statements also apply to libav.  As near as I
>> can tell, this is not a distinguishing characteristic between the two
>> projects.

> And that's an argument against switching to FFmpeg exactly how?

It's not.  Nor was I trying to make one.  This part of the thread was
discussing introducing FFmpeg into Debian alongside libav.

As I believe I mentioned previously, although the code base underlying
both projects has a bad past security track record, currently FFmpeg
appears to be doing somewhat better than libav.  I believe a member of the
security team made a similar observation.  So, when picking one, the
security argument seems to be at least partly in FFmpeg's favor.  That was
not my point; my point was that picking both of them is something that had
already been discussed and rejected for what to me feel like sound
reasons.

Security of course isn't the only consideration when picking one of the
two, and regardless I'm not the person who would be deciding anything.
Mostly I'm speaking up because it felt like people were going down blind
alleys arguing about things that aren't really at issue.

Note that experimental doesn't receive security support.  I may be missing
something (and here it's ftp-master that is the relevant decision-making
party), but I haven't seen any obvious reason why one shouldn't introduce
FFmpeg packages into experimental, particularly if people feel like
there's anything to be gained by seeing concrete packaging work, letting
people more easily experiment with the packages, and so forth.  Of course,
that by itself doesn't imply anything about the broader question of
replacing libav with FFmpeg or not.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>