Daniel Clark wrote: > [email protected] wrote: >> How about mplayer? Why is that not included? I think that the excuse >> that it can use binary codecs, and that they provide them on their >> website is a rather weak excuse to not include it. Mplayer has been >> included in the Debian repos for quite sometime now and I consider it to >> be the best video player around for GNU/Linux, certainly beats VLC in >> performance. > > Current FSF position seems to be that we list VLC but not mplayer in > directory.fsf.org. The reason we do not list mplayer are below (from > Kelly, our directory maintainer); this rejection was verified by rms on > 10/24/2008. So someone may want to look to see if anything has changed > since then. > > There are the parts of the README that invite the user to download > binaries. > > "MPlayer can play most standard video formats out of the box and almost > all others with the help of external codecs." > > "The GUI needs at least one skin and codec packages add support for some > more video and audio formats. MPlayer does not come with any of these by > default, you have to download and install them separately." > > "MPlayer has builtin support for the most common audio and video > formats. For a few formats no native decoder exists and external binary > codecs are required to handle them, for example newer RealVideo variants > and a variety of uncommon formats. This step is not mandatory, but > recommended for getting MPlayer to play a broader range of formats. > Please note that binary codecs only work on the processor architecture > they were compiled for."
BTW please note the vaguely subtle point here that the problem is that the codec *software* itself is nonfree, not that the codec plays formats that may be patent-encumbered in certain jurisdictions, like mp3 in the US. VLC plays some formats we would suggest people not use due to freedom issues (FSF recommends speex, ogg vorbis, and ogg theora), but it does so with software the user has source code for and is free to view and modify, not with binary blob codecs. -- Daniel JB Clark | Sys Admin, Free Software Foundation pobox.com/~dclark | http://www.fsf.org/about/staff#danny _______________________________________________ Trisquel-users mailing list [email protected] http://listas.trisquel.info/mailman/listinfo/trisquel-users
