[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] configure: don't build ffserver unless explicitly enabled

[Sven C. Dack]

On 11/09/16 16:31, Nicolas George wrote:
> I see how it can do that, but you refuse to understand that this part of the
> output is not meant to be parsed, unlike, for example, the output of
> ffprobe.

Nonsense. All messages, regardless if send to stdout or stderr, can be parsed. 
There is no rule in this world that says you shouldn't or couldn't do so.

But regardless of this, when you are no longer maintaining the code then you can 
also no longer insist on users having to accept the consequences of changes. The 
change, to print a single message, has no gain to the users who are still using 
ffserver. They will not thank you for abandoning the program, they may even feel 
annoyed by the message each time it prints, and as I pointed out before can 
cause them problems. You really want to leave the code untouched and provide it 
"as is" until the time it gets dropped.

Put the message into configure, put it into the manpage, on the webpages and the 
--help documentation, but please don't just pop it out onto stderr.

Sven