[FFmpeg-user] I'm playing audio on my Linux PC from the WWW. Can I record it to a file with ffmpeg?

[Carl Eugen Hoyos]

Phil Rhodes <phil_rhodes <at> rocketmail.com> writes:

> > I don't understand.  Why do you think it isn't ffmpeg?  
> 
> There is an ongoing political dispute going on between 
> two factions who develop software that they both call 
> "ffmpeg".

This is not true (the thieves do not call their fork "FFmpeg", 
only the maintainer of the Debian/Ubuntu repository does).

> Because of the nature of open source software, neither has 
> any greater claim on being "the real ffmpeg" than the other.

This is (of course) not true, not in any sense.
(If it were true, your first claim would be correct.)

> Because ffmpeg, of either persuasion, is open source 
> software and both factions have access to the others'
> code, this is a catastrophically pointless effort in 
> vanity-provoked dick-swinging.

I wonder what this has to do with open-source software..

> The achieves nothing other than confusing people like 
> you and me, especially as Carl Eugen's responses are 
> motivated by his personal leanings with respect to 
> the disagreement.

I still wonder what motivates your silly emails here. 
My motivation is (obviously?) to help people on this 
mailing list, I would say it is as obvious that this 
is not true for you.

> You could just as easily find someone who worked for 
> the other team who would tell you exactly the same 
> things about the version of ffmpeg that Carl Eugen 
> claims to be the real one.

Yes, you *could*.
But you *will* not find someone because it is not true.
You *could* also test a not too small number of fixed 
bugs in trac with avconv, and test some open bugs on 
bugzilla with FFmpeg to find out why you will not 
find somebody who claims that.
(Remember that I am neither claiming FFmpeg contains 
no known bugs nor that it contains no bugs that are 
not reproducible with avconv, just that the number of 
known bugs in avconv that are not reproducible with 
FFmpeg is one - actually two - magnitudes larger than 
the number of bugs in FFmpeg not reproducible with 
avconv.)

> I could go on to explain how it's a ringing 
> indictment of the leaderless model of software 
> development promoted by open source

FFmpeg is not leaderless (just as many other open-source 
software projects like for example the Linux kernel).

> but sadly I don't know enough about the specific 
> situation as it pertains to ffmpeg to go into further 
> detail.

Then why you post here?

> Suffice it to say that despite the frequency with 
> which people like to throw around legal threats with 
> respect to open source software, nobody appears to 
> be able to enforce their ownership of the name "ffmpeg".

We were absolutely able to defend our *copyright* as long 
as that made sense in our opinion, the owner of the 
"name" (trademark) of "FFmpeg" will probably defend it if 
it pleases him.

> The genesis of the problem - a split between two groups 
> of people who previously collaborated - is shrouded in 
> mystery and can really only be researched by reading a 
> lot of mailing list archives and trying to guess what 
> was said in the various personal emails which are 
> referred to. 

Or you take the simple way and read 
http://blog.pkh.me/p/13-the-ffmpeg-libav-situation.html 
(which contains sufficient links to the mentioned 
mailing list archives so you don't have to search).

> Presumably it's too embarrassing to talk about publicly

I thought you protested above against me talking about 
it publicly or did I misunderstand?

>  but the result is the same either way. No matter which 
> linux distro you use, someone will call you a lus3r 

I sincerely hope no Linux distribution will use childish 
Leet speak.

> and tell you to use a different one, and the situation 
> is, as far as I can tell, the same with ffmpeg.

That may or may not be true (I always recommended different 
distributions and media players than I used myself), I 
don't think it can count as a useful comment here.

Carl Eugen