[FFmpeg-devel] External Library Dependencies and Testability

[Soft Works]

Hi,

I don’t want to get involved in the ipfsgateway discussion, but the part about
external library version dependencies and testability reminded me of some 
recent thoughts: I wonder whether it wouldn’t make sense to maintain a version
reference for external libraries in a way that at any point in (repo) time
there’s a clearly defined set of dependency library versions.
This could provide a number of benefits, like:

- enable testability where external libs are involved
- improve reproducibility of issues with external libs
- serve as an orientation for library versions to use
  for static builds
- possibly more

It could still be purely informational but provide a defined reference
point for dependency library versions whenever needed or useful.

The configure script could get an option like 'strict_references' option 
would cause it to error out when it doesn't find the exact versions of libs.

Another use case for this would be for ensuring reproducibility of 
(static) builds. 

softworkz