[Mageia-dev] [RFC] Moving various packages/codecs to tainted

Anssi Hannula anssi at mageia.org
Tue Jan 10 00:12:26 CET 2012


Hi all!

As I've noted in some previous emails, our core/tainted media codec
split-up is currently arbitrary without any specific logic.

As far as I remember, the tainted policy is that codecs for formats that
are claimed to be covered by patents should be there.

Per that policy, at least the AC-3/DTS/MP3/MPEG-2/MPEG-4/H.264/VC-1
decoders and AC-3/MPEG-2/MPEG-4 encoders we have in core should be moved
to tainted section. Note that this will make most current
.mkv/.avi/.mp4/.mov/.wmv/.mp3 files unplayable without packages from
tainted section.

I've covered the other-distributions status earlier [1] in more detail,
but a quick rehash: Fedora doesn't have these codecs at all,
Debian/Ubuntu ship them in Main section, Arch has them as well.

The (probably slightly incomplete) list of source packages that need
some action (completely or partially moved to tainted) can be found below.

Shall I implement the move of the packages?
(after the current ISOs process is done)

Needs to be moved completely to tainted:

a52dec - AC-3 decoding library
mad - MP3 decoding library
mpeg2dec - MPEG-2 video decoding library
ocaml-mad - uses mad
pymad - uses mad
vdr-plugin-dvd - uses a52dec
vdr-plugin-mp3 - uses mad

Needs to be moved to tainted or to implement two separate builds:

alsaplayer - uses mad
audacity - uses mad
k3b - uses mad
kwave - uses mad
lastfm-player - uses mad
libextractor - uses mpeg2dec
libtunepimp - uses mad
mixxx - uses mad
mjpegtools - uses mpeg2dec
normalize - uses mad
qtractor - uses mad
scummvm - uses mad
sox - uses mad
stepmania - uses mad
stratagus2.1 - uses mad
streamripper - uses mad
xbmc - uses mpeg2dec

Already has dual build, but needs more stuff to be tainted-only:

avidemux - AC-3 dec+enc, DTS dec, MPEG-2 dec/enc, MPEG-4 dec/enc,
	   H.264 dec, uses mpeg2dec, VC-1 dec
cdrdao - uses mad
ffmpeg - AC-3 dec+enc, DTS dec, MPEG-2 dec/enc, MPEG-4 dec/enc,
         H.264 dec, VC-1 dec
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg - as above
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad - uses mpeg2dec
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly - uses mpeg2dec
mpd - uses mad
mplayer - AC-3 dec+enc, DTS dec, MPEG-2 dec/enc, MPEG-4 dec/enc,
         H.264 dec, VC-1 dec
vlc - uses mad, a52dec, mpeg2dec
xine-lib1.2 - uses mad


I didn't include in the above list several formats:
- ASF (no active licesing program IIRC, Fedora ships it as well)
- MPEG-2 TS (apparently even Fedora ships them, dunno if oversight,
  though)
- H.263 (no active licensing program IIRC, relatively obscure when
compared to others)


[1] https://www.zarb.org/pipermail/mageia-dev/20101012/001084.html

-- 
Anssi Hannula


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