[gst-devel] Re: optional caps [was: Gnome-2.6, GStreamer-0.8 and caps]

[Benjamin Otte]

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003, Ronald Bultje wrote:

> Optional means "provide if known", and that we (want to) have a separate
> element that parses the data from the stream if it's not provided by the
> source element.
>
The current GStreamer model does not allow for "provide if known"
unfortunately. Our current usage of "optional" caps is more of a kludge
then anytrhing else.

Some reasons:
- An intersection between one caps with and one caps without optional
caps will always include these optional caps. This is clearly wrong in
some cases (when the optinal caps aren't part of the srcpad's caps) and
clearly right in other cases (when they aren't part of the sinkpad's
caps).
- The autoplugger assumes those elements can connect when they should not.

I think there are more issues. (Ask David, he hates them more than me ;))
We should "fix" them someway, no clue how though.

Benjamin