[FFmpeg-devel] [DECISION] Project policy on closed source components

[Hendrik Leppkes]

On Mon, May 13, 2019 at 10:37 PM Carl Eugen Hoyos <ceffmpeg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Am Mo., 13. Mai 2019 um 22:32 Uhr schrieb James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com>:
> >
> > On 5/13/2019 5:23 PM, Carl Eugen Hoyos wrote:
> > > Am Mo., 13. Mai 2019 um 22:18 Uhr schrieb James Almer <jamrial at gmail.com>:
> > >>
> > >> On 5/13/2019 5:13 PM, Carl Eugen Hoyos wrote:
> > >>> Am Mo., 13. Mai 2019 um 22:10 Uhr schrieb Marton Balint <cus at passwd.hu>:
>
> > >>>>> 1) Should libNDI support be removed from the ffmpeg codebase?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Thanks for the votes, I counted 9 yes, 5 no, so majority is for removal of
> > >>>> libNDI, which is already done.
> > >>>
> > >>> The vote was not about the removal from libndi from release branches?
> > >>
> > >> No, features on releases are frozen, as changing them can result in
> > >> breakages for distros and package managers.
> > >
> > > We have broken distros and packages before, we would not break it
> > > in this case;-)
> >
> > We would. Distros and scripts would be broken, and it would not be pretty.
>
> Would you please be so kind as to explain (if possible in detail) how
> this would be possible in this specific case?
> I do not understand how removing a non-free dependency can break a
> binary distribution.
>

There are other people that use and build ffmpeg, and track release
branches. And they may as well be building only for themselves a
non-free binary.
Release branches provide a guarantee of API, ABI and feature
stability. We shall not violate that for some petty feud.

- Hendrik