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Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

multimedia.cx

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Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#31

Post by jswinghammer »

dimitar wrote: post #28
robterrell wrote: post #13

I don't want to be snarky in response to an ffmpeg developer, because I love ffmpeg and respect his contributions, but still, this is not exactly news. The explosion of the entire category of "video sharing sites based on Flash" happened right after ffmpeg added FLV support. That was the missing piece -- before that, you could only convert videos to FLV using Adobe's proprietary (and expensive and crappy and GUI-base…

This is great! I think the bigger story is how much popular web applications are dependant on open source operating systems, libraries and programs.

Probably any that you've seen accept uploaded video from their users. My company's software is dependent on ffmpeg and a few other open source tools for converting and dealing with video. I don't accept uploaded video but I do a lot of transcoding and ffmpeg is excellent for that. I also use mp4box and handbrake if anyone is curious.

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#32

Post by VMG »

joelthelion wrote: post #12
jforman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, many companies avoid using AGPL code altogether. Code that isn't used can't be improved.

If they avoid it, it's because they are not ready to share the code. Thus their using the code is pretty much useless in the first place...

> If they avoid it, it's because they are not ready to share the code.

Maybe they only can or want to share some of the code, not all of it. The AGPL prevents this.

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#33

Post by defen »

nikcub wrote: post #11
wcoenen wrote: post #6

To me this illustrates that if you want to ensure that improvements to your code are shared back, you'd better use the AGPL license ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html ) instead of GPL. Quote from the AGPL preamble: It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly ac…

Google won't touch or integrate anything that is GPL licensed into their own products - especially AGPL. the linux kernel in android is the only GPL code you will find from Google, and even then they got a lot of criticism from FSF folks for deciding to license modules under a more liberal license So if you are a developer and want to see your own library and code used by corporates such as Google and many others, a…

> Using copyright law to force corporations and developers to become contributors and active participants in your software project is, to me, a ridiculous notion.

I don't really understand this sentence. No one is forcing anyone to do anything. There is code, and it has a license, and if you don't like the terms of the license, you don't use the code. Is it also ridiculous that that most software/movie/music/book creators use copyright law to "force" consumers to pay for their output?

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#34

Post by streptomycin »

jforman wrote: post #9
wcoenen wrote: post #6

To me this illustrates that if you want to ensure that improvements to your code are shared back, you'd better use the AGPL license ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html ) instead of GPL. Quote from the AGPL preamble: It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly ac…

On the other hand, many companies avoid using AGPL code altogether. Code that isn't used can't be improved.

That's the same argument people make against the GPL for normal desktop apps. And yet, GPLed software has been quite successful.

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#35

Post by mscarborough »

robterrell wrote: post #13

I don't want to be snarky in response to an ffmpeg developer, because I love ffmpeg and respect his contributions, but still, this is not exactly news. The explosion of the entire category of "video sharing sites based on Flash" happened right after ffmpeg added FLV support. That was the missing piece -- before that, you could only convert videos to FLV using Adobe's proprietary (and expensive and crappy and GUI-base…

We use ffmpeg at Yahoo, and we used it at Associated Content to convert user's videos into FLV. ffmpeg + upload scripts is able to replace almost all of the manual time and 3 different Windows apps that editors used to do just to get a random video on the web.

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#36

Post by dman »

Lol_Lolovici wrote: post #22
wcoenen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google won't touch or integrate anything that is GPL licensed into their own products ffmpeg is GPL, and it is being used in youtube. Isn't that the story here? > Using copyright law to force corporations and developers to become contributors and active participants in your software project is, to me, a ridiculous notion. So the fact that so many companies contribute to the Linux kernel has nothing to do with its G…

FFmpeg can also be compiled with an LGPL license so it can be linked in commercial products. Also executing an external GPL library/binary from a commercial product (no direct linking) is not in direct contradiction with GPL terms (although it's a gray area where most companies would probably not want to go).

Can you elaborate on the gray area bit?

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#37

Post by [deleted] »

dman wrote: post #36
Lol_Lolovici wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FFmpeg can also be compiled with an LGPL license so it can be linked in commercial products. Also executing an external GPL library/binary from a commercial product (no direct linking) is not in direct contradiction with GPL terms (although it's a gray area where most companies would probably not want to go).

Can you elaborate on the gray area bit?

[deleted]

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#38

Post by durin42 »

nikcub wrote: post #11
wcoenen wrote: post #6

To me this illustrates that if you want to ensure that improvements to your code are shared back, you'd better use the AGPL license ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html ) instead of GPL. Quote from the AGPL preamble: It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly ac…

Google won't touch or integrate anything that is GPL licensed into their own products - especially AGPL. the linux kernel in android is the only GPL code you will find from Google, and even then they got a lot of criticism from FSF folks for deciding to license modules under a more liberal license So if you are a developer and want to see your own library and code used by corporates such as Google and many others, a…

This is absurd. We use Mercurial and Dulwich code in the project hosting site, and those are both GPL. We're very careful about where we allow GPL'd code, but we do use it quite a bit. Obviously, we're more paranoid about AGPL, but that's really a different license because of the extra restrictions.

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#39

Post by [deleted] »

dman wrote: post #36
Lol_Lolovici wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FFmpeg can also be compiled with an LGPL license so it can be linked in commercial products. Also executing an external GPL library/binary from a commercial product (no direct linking) is not in direct contradiction with GPL terms (although it's a gray area where most companies would probably not want to go).

Can you elaborate on the gray area bit?

[deleted]

Re: Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg

#40

Post by [deleted] »

dman wrote: post #36
Lol_Lolovici wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FFmpeg can also be compiled with an LGPL license so it can be linked in commercial products. Also executing an external GPL library/binary from a commercial product (no direct linking) is not in direct contradiction with GPL terms (although it's a gray area where most companies would probably not want to go).

Can you elaborate on the gray area bit?

[deleted]
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