256 lines
9.4 KiB
Plaintext
256 lines
9.4 KiB
Plaintext
GStreamer 1.17.x development series
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WHAT IT IS
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----------
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This is GStreamer, a framework for streaming media.
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WHERE TO START
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--------------
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We have a website at
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http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
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You should start by going through our FAQ at
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http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/
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There is more documentation; go to
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http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation
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You can subscribe to our mailing lists; see the website for details.
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We track bugs in GNOME's bugzilla; see the website for details.
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You can join us on IRC - #gstreamer on irc.freenode.org
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GStreamer 1.0 series
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--------------------
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Starring
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GSTREAMER
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The core around which all other modules revolve. Base functionality and
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libraries, some essential elements, documentation, and testing.
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BASE
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A well-groomed and well-maintained collection of GStreamer plug-ins and
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elements, spanning the range of possible types of elements one would want
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to write for GStreamer.
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And introducing, for the first time ever, on the development screen ...
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THE GOOD
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--- "Such ingratitude. After all the times I've saved your life."
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A collection of plug-ins you'd want to have right next to you on the
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battlefield. Shooting sharp and making no mistakes, these plug-ins have it
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all: good looks, good code, and good licensing. Documented and dressed up
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in tests. If you're looking for a role model to base your own plug-in on,
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here it is.
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If you find a plot hole or a badly lip-synced line of code in them,
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let us know - it is a matter of honour for us to ensure Blondie doesn't look
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like he's been walking 100 miles through the desert without water.
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THE UGLY
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--- "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."
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There are times when the world needs a color between black and white.
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Quality code to match the good's, but two-timing, backstabbing and ready to
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sell your freedom down the river. These plug-ins might have a patent noose
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around their neck, or a lock-up license, or any other problem that makes you
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think twice about shipping them.
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We don't call them ugly because we like them less. Does a mother love her
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son less because he's not as pretty as the other ones ? No - she commends
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him on his great personality. These plug-ins are the life of the party.
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And we'll still step in and set them straight if you report any unacceptable
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behaviour - because there are two kinds of people in the world, my friend:
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those with a rope around their neck and the people who do the cutting.
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THE BAD
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--- "That an accusation?"
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No perfectly groomed moustache or any amount of fine clothing is going to
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cover up the truth - these plug-ins are Bad with a capital B.
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They look fine on the outside, and might even appear to get the job done, but
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at the end of the day they're a black sheep. Without a golden-haired angel
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to watch over them, they'll probably land in an unmarked grave at the final
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showdown.
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Don't bug us about their quality - exercise your Free Software rights,
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patch up the offender and send us the patch on the fastest steed you can
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steal from the Confederates. Because you see, in this world, there's two
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kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig.
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You dig.
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The Lowdown
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-----------
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--- "I've never seen so many plug-ins wasted so badly."
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GStreamer Plug-ins has grown so big that it's hard to separate the wheat from
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the chaff. Also, distributors have brought up issues about the legal status
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of some of the plug-ins we ship. To remedy this, we've divided the previous
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set of available plug-ins into four modules:
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- gst-plugins-base: a small and fixed set of plug-ins, covering a wide range
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of possible types of elements; these are continuously kept up-to-date
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with any core changes during the development series.
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- We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
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- People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
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- These elements come with examples, documentation, and regression tests.
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- gst-plugins-good: a set of plug-ins that we consider to have good quality
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code, correct functionality, our preferred license (LGPL for the plug-in
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code, LGPL or LGPL-compatible for the supporting library).
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- We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
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- People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
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- gst-plugins-ugly: a set of plug-ins that have good quality and correct
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functionality, but distributing them might pose problems. The license
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on either the plug-ins or the supporting libraries might not be how we'd
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like. The code might be widely known to present patent problems.
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- Distributors should check if they want/can ship these plug-ins.
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- People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
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- gst-plugins-bad: a set of plug-ins that aren't up to par compared to the
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rest. They might be close to being good quality, but they're missing
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something - be it a good code review, some documentation, a set of tests,
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a real live maintainer, or some actual wide use.
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If the blanks are filled in they might be upgraded to become part of
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either gst-plugins-good or gst-plugins-ugly, depending on the other factors.
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- If the plug-ins break, you can't complain - instead, you can fix the
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problem and send us a patch, or bribe someone into fixing them for you.
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- New contributors can start here for things to work on.
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PLATFORMS
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---------
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- Linux is of course fully supported
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- FreeBSD is reported to work; other BSDs should work too
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- Solaris is reported to work; a specific sunaudiosink plugin has been written
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- MacOSX works, binary 1.x packages can be built using the cerbero build tool
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- Windows works; binary 1.x packages can be built using the cerbero build tool
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- MSys/MinGW builds
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- Microsoft Visual Studio builds are not yet available or supported
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- Android works, binary 1.x packages can be built using the cerbero build tool
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- iOS works
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INSTALLING FROM PACKAGES
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------------------------
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You should always prefer installing from packages first. GStreamer is
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well-maintained for a number of distributions, including Fedora, Debian,
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Ubuntu, Mandrake, Gentoo, ...
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Only in cases where you:
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- want to hack on GStreamer
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- want to verify that a bug has been fixed
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- do not have a sane distribution
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should you choose to build from source tarballs or git.
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Find more information about the various packages at
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http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/
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COMPILING FROM SOURCE TARBALLS
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------------------------------
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- again, make sure that you really need to install from source !
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If GStreamer is one of your first projects ever that you build from source,
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consider taking on an easier project.
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- check output of ./configure --help to see if any options apply to you
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- run
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./configure
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make
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to build GStreamer.
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- if you want to install it (not required, but what you usually want to do), run
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make install
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- try out a simple test:
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gst-launch -v fakesrc num_buffers=5 ! fakesink
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(If you didn't install GStreamer, prefix gst-launch with tools/)
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If it outputs a bunch of messages from fakesrc and fakesink, everything is
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ok.
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If it did not work, keep in mind that you might need to adjust the
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PATH and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables to make the system
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find GStreamer in the prefix where you installed (by default that is /usr/local).
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- After this, you're ready to install gst-plugins, which will provide the
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functionality you're probably looking for by now, so go on and read
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that README.
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COMPILING FROM GIT
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------------------
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When building from git sources, you will need to run autogen.sh to generate
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the build system files.
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You will need a set of additional tools typical for building from git,
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including:
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- autoconf
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- automake
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- libtool
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autogen.sh will check for recent enough versions and complain if you don't have
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them. You can also specify specific versions of automake and autoconf with
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--with-automake and --with-autoconf
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Check autogen.sh options by running autogen.sh --help
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autogen.sh can pass on arguments to configure
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When you have done this once, you can use autoregen.sh to re-autogen with
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the last passed options as a handy shortcut. Use it.
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After the autogen.sh stage, you can follow the directions listed in
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"COMPILING FROM SOURCE"
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You can also run your whole git stack uninstalled in your home directory,
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so that you can quickly test changes without affecting your system setup or
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interfering with GStreamer installed from packages. Many GStreamer developers
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use an uninstalled setup for their work.
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There is a 'create-uninstalled-setup.sh' script in
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http://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/tree/scripts/
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to easily create an uninstalled setup from scratch.
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PLUG-IN DEPENDENCIES AND LICENSES
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---------------------------------
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GStreamer is developed under the terms of the LGPL (see LICENSE file for
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details). Some of our plug-ins however rely on libraries which are available
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under other licenses. This means that if you are distributing an application
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which has a non-GPL compatible license (for instance a closed-source
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application) with GStreamer, you have to make sure not to distribute GPL-linked
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plug-ins.
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When using GPL-linked plug-ins, GStreamer is for all practical reasons
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under the GPL itself.
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HISTORY
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-------
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The fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate
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Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectMedia. It's based on plug-ins that
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will provide the various codec and other functionality. The interface
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hopefully is generic enough for various companies (ahem, Apple) to release
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binary codecs for Linux, until such time as they get a clue and release the
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source.
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