[gst-devel] gst-ffmpeg & decodebin

[Tim Müller]

On Wed, 2008-02-06 at 19:33 +0100, Tom Cooksey wrote:

> IMO, an occasional segfault for some people is better than never
> playing the media.

Umm, no. Crashing is simply not acceptable, ever.

There are two perfectly adequate and supported mp3 decoders with
licenses that should be perfectly acceptable to anyone for their
(software) licensing needs.

Anything beyond that adds very little value and only increases our
maintenance burden. Not much of a trade-off to be had here for us, I
think. There's only so much we can test and maintain.

Showing the user a message 'You need to install an xyz decoder to play
this file' is better than exposing him/her to plugins of dubious
quality. Recent/decent distros may even install the required packages
automatically for them in this case (via GStreamer's missing plugin
installation API).


> As mentioned, if a user does experience a segfault, they can just
> install another plugin with a higher rank.

Most users will just think "totem-gstreamer sucks", "rhythmbox sucks" or
maybe "GStreamer-based players suck". I doubt they'll go and learn about
how GStreamer and its plugin system work and/or start looking for better
codecs.


> It might also highlight bugs in ffmpeg & encorage them to be fixed. :-)

Sure, but it's usually also a good idea to pick your battles. Which is
what we're doing here :)

 Cheers
  -Tim