I had noticed that packages such as mplayer and mencoder were included in
Taranis. A quick apt-cache query shows that this is the filename of the
package:
pool/main/m/mplayer/mplayer_1.0~rc3+svn20090426-1ubuntu16trisquel1_amd64.deb
This leads me to believe that Trisquel has modified the package in some way
to comply with freedom standards (trisquel is in the package name next to
ubuntu).
I looked at the source package, and in the `debian' folder, there is a note
that this source package has been stripped of things from the original
mplayer source; it references the script `strip.sh', which contains code for
the removal of patented or non-free encoders. In the list are h263, h264,
mpeg2video, mpeg4, and msmpeg4; I'm not sure entirely how to read it, but it
seems to be removing lines of code that compile in those non-free versions.
Instead it tends to use ffmpeg, which apparently has also been stripped by a
similar script. Run `apt-get source mplayer' and check it yourself, you might
find something I missed.
