Re: GStreamer xwidget

[Po Lu]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> This is not directly concerned with Emacs, but I'm curious.
>
> According to Wikipedia, the "bad" problems of GStreamer have
> _technical_ problems; perhaps they need more work.  Do you know
> whether all the "bad" plug-ins are ziyou?

I don't know, but I was told by word-of-mouth that the GStreamer
developers do not hold the "bad" plugins to any standard, both technical
and freedom-wise.

As such, they don't guarantee that those plugins are free software.

> As for the "ugly" plug-ins, can you find for me a list of them, what
> formats they support, and what the "distribution problem" of each one
> is?  Basically, I'd like to know what the obstacles are to their use.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a precise list of obstacles, but here's a
list of formats supported by the various plugins:

  - Microsoft ASF (possibly strangled by patents?)
  - DVD subtitles (though I don't know what precisely this is)
  - dvdlpcmdec (this possibly involves breaking DRM, could be illegal
    because of that)
  - RealMedia and RealAudio (patent encumbered, possible license problems)
  - "xingmux" (I couldn't find any information on this one)

Thanks.