[FFmpeg-devel] Proposal: Homebrew tap for FFmpeg

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2019, at 21:18, Lou Logan wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 8, 2019, at 12:03 AM, Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote:
> >
> > Helping people to build non-free distributions of FFmpeg is a very weird 
> > and dubious goal.
> > This is just helping other people violate the FFmpeg license.
> 
> You could say the same thing for other build scripts such as the AUR for 
> Arch Linux. It's just a tool. Tools can be misused.

Yes, but it is not FFmpeg that is maintaining this AUR recipe.
Also, the AUR recipe does not push for non-free packages.

> You could apply the same argument to our source code. Having --enable-
> nonfree in the source code helpspeople violate the license. But that's a 
> completely different discussion.

Source code requires compilation and steps. You must know what you are doing when you enable --non-free, after cloning the source.
Not if it is done automatically in homebrew or another way.

> > Do not use Github to develop. Github is not-free.
> 
> I believe there are three reasons for the Github suggestion.
> 
> 1. It makes the homebrew command trivially shorter/simpler for the user:
> https://docs.brew.sh/How-to-Create-and-Maintain-a-Tap
> 
> 2. More importantly, a question for those who volunteered (and 
> potentially future contributors), would you be less inclined to maintain 
> via a normal, non-Github git repo? Would the typical homebrew user know 
> where to report issues? Where would they report issues? It's unfortunate 
> that Github is not free, but we need to take account of the differences 
> between communities and experience.
> 
> 3. Someone is going to make this ffmpeg "formulae" (as they call it) 
> which will become the most popular one among users. I bet it's most 
> certainly going to be on Github. I think it's better that we have some 
> ability to be able to edit it.

All those 3 reasons are fine, but they do not change the fact that they get the project to support this officially.
It's also by doing those choice like 2) that you accept binary-loaders for codecs, instead of RE-ing them: "because the user wants it".

If someone wants to do a Tap for homebrew, because the homebrew people decided to disregard their own users, I don't mind. But supporting it from the official FFmpeg project is a very different task, and if done, it should be done with open source tools (use gitlab if you like github so much), and without the evil options.


-- 
Jean-Baptiste Kempf -  President
+33 672 704 734