FFmpeg back in Debian

in code on 2014-09-30 02:13 (#2T0R)

More than 3 years ago, January 2011, ffmpeg was forked by a part of the development team into libav. Then, by the end of that year, the fork had replaced FFmpeg in Debian's packages, with, notably, the binary in the ffmpeg package marking itself as deprecated and recommending users to use avconv instead. As the split didn't happen in the most friendly way (to say the least), these events sparkled a lot of debates and flames and it is quite difficult to find articles on the topic that are not biased one way or the other.

In November 2013, a bug report was filed for Debian to reintroduce an actual ffmpeg package and all the associated libraries. Fast forward to mid-September 2014, after some technical discussions and soname changes (all ffmpeg-related libraries with a libav* name have been renamed into libav*-ffmpeg), ffmpeg has been quietly reintroduced in Debian unstable and it might even be just in time to be included for release in Jessie.

Let's hope this solution where both versions can co-exist will help calm things down.

bug report: November 2013 (Score: 1)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2014-09-30 07:32 (#2T0W)

oops, my bad, the bug report is dated November 2013 not 2012 ...

Nice carrot, but no thanks (Score: 2, Informative)

by foobarbazbot@pipedot.org on 2014-09-30 13:43 (#2T12)

They think giving us a choice between ffmpeg forks will make us all jump to jessie, and just put up with the systemd/gnome3 abomination?

Not likely.

Debian is a dying project. (Score: -1, Troll)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-01 02:17 (#2T19)

Debian is a dying project. It is like Mozilla and GNOME. Once, a long time ago, they were all relevant. But then they started to crap all over their users. That's one thing that an open source project or organization of any type cannot do: crap on its users. These users have ample choice. They will leave. Disgruntled Debian users have already moved to Gentoo and FreeBSD. Disgruntled Firefox users have moved to Chrome. Disgruntled GNOME users have moved to KDE and Xfce. I don't even think that Debian, Mozilla or GNOME can redeem themselves. Their names have become synonymous with getting crapped on. Soon their names will be synonymous with complete and utter failure.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 1, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-01 03:16 (#2T1B)

The parent makes some good points, and should be modded up.

I've been looking at the stats for my web sites lately, and over the past four years Firefox's usage has totally dropped off, while Chrome's has gone through the roof. This is consistently the case no matter which of my sites I look at, and even when I isolate the stats to specific geographical regions, or periods of time, or other such groupings.

Linux distros can die, too. Just look at Mandrake. It was once really popular. I think it was even at the top of DistroWatch's popularity list at one point. But now it's a has-been that is used by very few people. The same could happen to Debian.

When I look at my sites' stats and see Firefox go from 35% four years ago down to 7% today, while Chrome goes from 10% to 56% over the same time period, I think it's clear which project is dying and which is thriving. Hint: it's Firefox that's dying.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 2, Interesting)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-01 05:12 (#2T1C)

The numbers tell a different story. Chrome's market-share can only minimally be at the expense of Firefox... i.e. Chrome is more popular now than Firefox EVER was, and Firefox hasn't fallen dramatically off of it's brief highs... Instead Chrome's incredible popularity is almost entirely at the expense of Internet Explorer. So, if something is "dying" it's Internet Explorer. And yet, none of them are for-profit works, so 100% or 1% market share is all the same, and it's unlikely that any of them will "die." Getting caught-up in the market-share horse-race is a fool's errand that does no good for anyone.

With Debian, the claim it is dying is even more ridiculous. There's really no distro out there, free of systemd, that has a snowball's chance in hell of getting corporate adoption. Companies are never going to build their own Gentoo systems, and hardware/software markers would never support it. Whatever complaints you may have against Debian does not translate into it dying, or even losing the slightest bit of market share. If someone has some numbers, showing Gentoo or FreeBSD overtaking Debian/Ubuntu/Redhat/Suse, I'd love to see it. Otherwise, the claim is just an utterly and totally ridiculous and laughable bit of trolling.

A bit ironic, I know, as it's FreeBSD that's supposed to be "dying"...

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 1)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2014-10-01 07:05 (#2T1D)

Getting caught-up in the market-share horse-race is a fool's errand that does no good for anyone.

I don't know about that. I always thought that this competition was at the heart of the "my-acid-test-results-are-better-than-yours" and the "my-js-engine-is-faster-than-yours" things a few years back, which I'd call good for the users ;-)

Now if what you mean is that this race would cause a browser to be abandoned whenever its market-share drops below a given threshold, then I agree it does no good.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-02 11:51 (#2T24)

Not "for profit" is a bit of a red herring. Mozilla rolls in its cash historically through their Google deal for FF search. They care a LOT about money, and little about anything else (good code, sane hiring, their legacy, stability, efficiency).

Googlio's and MS's financial motivations fortheir browsers are of course obvious.

Not sure why you seem to be saying that all companies absolutely require systemd in a distro they will use. They never did before.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-04 13:20 (#2T35)

Firefox's market share has gone from the mid-30% to somewhere around 10%. So where exactly did that 20% go? You claim it isn't to Chrome, but it mostly is.

Both IE and Firefox have lost users to Chrome. But IE is clearly making a comeback. It's getting better, while Firefox is getting worse.

That's the difference between a dying project and a thriving project: a dying project is heading in the wrong direction, while a thriving one is improving.

Debian is heading in a very bad direction with the adoption of systemd. That's why it's a dying project. Like GNOME and Firefox, it's collectively making bad decisions that are ruining the user experience, and driving users away.

"Dying" doesn't mean "dead", either. Debian could very well come back, if they're smart and ditch systemd now, before the community is too fragmented.

And FreeBSD was never dying. The whole idea behind those comments at /. was that they flew in the face of reality, and that's what makes them amusing. FreeBSD has always been a thriving project.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 1)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-06 05:33 (#2T4K)

Firefox's market share has gone from the mid-30% to somewhere around 10%.

Nope. Numerous sources put it at 15% to 21%:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_table

So where exactly did that 20% go? You claim it isn't to Chrome, but it mostly is.

I didn't claim that at all.

But IE is clearly making a comeback.

Also completely wrong. Through August 2014, IE has continued falling, with absolutely no indication of a rebound. W3Counter, Clicky, and StatCounter stats all say exactly the same thing. A straight fall for IE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Historical_usage_share

Here's a graph:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Usage_share_of_web_browsers_%28Source_StatCounter%29.svg

Firefox has fallen off it's highs, but not substantially.

Debian is heading in a very bad direction with the adoption of systemd. That's why it's a dying project.

You call it a bad direction. I call it a good direction. You are only predicting Debian will become a dying project in some distant future, with zero evidence to back-up that claim, just like your complete nonsense about browser share, clearly based on how you personally FEEL about them, rather than... reality.

Besides all else, if systemd is going to hurt Debian, it will necessarily hurt every other Linux distro out there, so Debian is no worse off. Only Slackware/Gentoo is abstaining from systemd (for the moment), and they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being adopted by corporations, in lieu of, say RHEL. FreeBSD similarly isn't going replaced the installed base of Linux distros. It's utterly and totally ridiculous to claim Debian is hurting, or going to hurt, because of systemd, when there is no alternative.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-10 15:57 (#2T7A)

Actually according to StatCounter, in Germany Firefox is still the most-used browser, although it markedly went down from its peak of 62.25% in November 2010 to "just" 41.95% in October 2014.

Unfortunately data before Juli 2008 is not available; but since then, Firefox has consistently been the #1 browser; only the #2 has switched from IE to Chrome.

So if Firefox is dying, it still has a long way to go.

#browser-DE-monthly-200807-201410" rel="nofollow">

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-10 15:59 (#2T7B)

I had added a link to the statcounter page, but it got removed. Let's see if it works when pasted as text:

#browser-DE-monthly-200807-201410" rel="nofollow">http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-DE-monthly-200807-201410

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 1)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-10-01 14:29 (#2T1G)

All the projects you are talking about are doing just fine.

A few nerds on slashdot/pipedot being angry != people moving en masse.

I mean, according to the internet, Ubuntu is dead, and yet it is still the most popular linux distro out there...

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-01 18:16 (#2T1N)

Ubuntu isn't dead; it just smells that way.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-01 18:14 (#2T1M)

Don't forget Slackware...it's like Gentoo in that it doesn't have systemd, but it's NOT like Gentoo in that you don't have to compile EVERYTHING from source.

And as a plus, Slackware doesn't even waste repository space supporting Gnome, and hasn't for a few versions. What seemed like a weird move at the time has shown Volk to be a bit of a visionary...

I am a little more confused with the Mozilla side of things. While they've gotten a little cocky, they still have a ways to go before it's nearly as bad as Chrome to those who have solid reasons for using Firefox in the first place. The real threat they face is folks like Pale Moon and company making a better Firefox than Firefox. Can't say I've seen good reason to switch though...any change they've made I didn't like I configured away with extensions, and that degree of configuration and extension support is precisely why I've been a Firefox user for years in the first place. Webkit will need some pretty serious enhancements it they hope to ever take the seat of my primary browser...

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: -1, Offtopic)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-02 12:28 (#2T26)

I think I'm done with Pipedot. The parent comment should be +5, Insightful, not -1, Troll.

The moderation here is worse than it is on /. or SN.

Good comments like that one should be celebrated, not shunned!

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 3, Insightful)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-10-02 13:47 (#2T28)

It would possibly be +5 on slashdot because it really appeals to the hivemind there. It is -1 here because the comment is simply wrong. It might be nice to think those companies you think have slighted you are now "dying", but they are all doing pretty well right now. The parent was just a self-righteous rant. More to the point, the companies named generally made changes with the intention of making themselves more appealing to certain users. That is not "crapping on their users" as was incorrectly claimed.

If not automatically +1'ing every thing that appeals to the internet hivemind bothers you, then this is no big loss to pipedot.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: -1, Offtopic)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-02 20:02 (#2T2C)

So you're the one who keeps downmodding reasonable ACs. Thanks for finally coming out of the closet.

For the record, I am neither the grandparent poster in question nor the guy you were replying to.

The GP was strident but was in no way a troll. If you're the person who downmodded it, you are making a mistake. He stated an opinion with some supporting detail and comparisons.

You are killing Pipedot, skarjak. Your one powerful little downvote sets the "-1" and keeps your registered brethren from seeing the discussion. This place has the best ACs I've ever seen, and you or someone like you keeps downmodding them arbitrarily and denying other users a viable conversation. Heck, even Zafiro (and perhaps Bryan) has commented on how wrong-headed you are and how unfortunate it is that very reasonable AC posts, ones that generate good discussion, are "disappeared".

Just stop it, man. You're wrong, and if you're an adult you can deal with that.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: -1, Offtopic)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-02 20:04 (#2T2D)

Also, no one asked you to go out of your way to "+1" anything, as you replied in an interesting straw man fashion. We're asking you to STOP going out of your way to downmod posts simply because you disagree with them or because their tone isn't quite to your liking. Your behavior is destructive to this site.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 1)

by seriously@pipedot.org on 2014-10-03 09:06 (#2T2H)

I could make a lengthy comment about why I think the original AC is wrong (also evilpiper already made a good point over here) and why his post qualifies as a rant (the Troll mod might be exagerated ... or not, let the mods decide), but instead I will summarize my thoughts in the standard good old-fashioned way:

Debian is a dying project.

[citation needed] (insert netcraft-related jokes here)

disclaimers: I did not downmod the original AC but I won't upmod it either

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: 1)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-10-03 13:19 (#2T2N)

That's a nice rant you made here. There's just one little thing wrong with it: I'm not "the one who dowmods ACs". In fact I think I've -1'ed a post a handful of times at most in the entire time I've been here. The little button under that post currently reads "Normal" to me.

But definitely that was a nice rant you just made. I could really feel the emotion and the self-rigtheousness. 9/10

I'm not gonna claim you're killing pipedot, since it's ridiculous to think any one user could do it, but you're certainly not helping with your drama and finger pointing. Get that shit back to soylent news. This is a site about discussing technology, and I expect certain standards here.

Now please, let's discuss technology.

P.S.: You didn't address my points. The parent was still a rant completely disconnected from reality. And I'm not the only one to believe this, that's why someone else modded him -1. I mean, really? Debian is dying? Maybe you should tell all the volunteers. Like the guy said below: [Citation needed]. That's not a thoughtful discussion-generating post. That's an angry rant.

Re: Debian is a dying project. (Score: -1, Offtopic)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-04 13:14 (#2T34)

We tried to discuss technology. But people like you modded down our comments, preventing that from continuing.

ffmpeg vs libav (Score: 3, Informative)

by entropy@pipedot.org on 2014-10-01 18:56 (#2T1P)

REF: https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/wiki/FFmpeg-versus-Libav

Found a good resource on the pros & cons of both. Basically ffmpeg integrates every change libav makes, libav doesn't do that with ffmpeg. Thus ffmpeg is basically a superset of libav, it does everything that libav does and more. New(and useful) APIs in ffmpeg do not make their way into libav, unfortunately. Seems that the ffmpeg developer is banned from the libav irc channel(lol).