1GStreamer @SERIES_VERSION@ 2 3WHAT IT IS 4---------- 5 6This is GStreamer, a framework for streaming media. 7 8WHERE TO START 9-------------- 10 11We have a website at 12http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/ 13 14You should start by going through our FAQ at 15http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/ 16 17There is more documentation; go to 18http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation 19 20You can subscribe to our mailing lists; see the website for details. 21 22We track bugs in GNOME's bugzilla; see the website for details. 23 24You can join us on IRC - #gstreamer on irc.freenode.org 25 26GStreamer 1.0 series 27-------------------- 28 29Starring 30 31 GSTREAMER 32 33The core around which all other modules revolve. Base functionality and 34libraries, some essential elements, documentation, and testing. 35 36 BASE 37 38A well-groomed and well-maintained collection of GStreamer plug-ins and 39elements, spanning the range of possible types of elements one would want 40to write for GStreamer. 41 42And introducing, for the first time ever, on the development screen ... 43 44 THE GOOD 45 46 --- "Such ingratitude. After all the times I've saved your life." 47 48A collection of plug-ins you'd want to have right next to you on the 49battlefield. Shooting sharp and making no mistakes, these plug-ins have it 50all: good looks, good code, and good licensing. Documented and dressed up 51in tests. If you're looking for a role model to base your own plug-in on, 52here it is. 53 54If you find a plot hole or a badly lip-synced line of code in them, 55let us know - it is a matter of honour for us to ensure Blondie doesn't look 56like he's been walking 100 miles through the desert without water. 57 58 THE UGLY 59 60 --- "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk." 61 62There are times when the world needs a color between black and white. 63Quality code to match the good's, but two-timing, backstabbing and ready to 64sell your freedom down the river. These plug-ins might have a patent noose 65around their neck, or a lock-up license, or any other problem that makes you 66think twice about shipping them. 67 68We don't call them ugly because we like them less. Does a mother love her 69son less because he's not as pretty as the other ones ? No - she commends 70him on his great personality. These plug-ins are the life of the party. 71And we'll still step in and set them straight if you report any unacceptable 72behaviour - because there are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: 73those with a rope around their neck and the people who do the cutting. 74 75 THE BAD 76 77 --- "That an accusation?" 78 79No perfectly groomed moustache or any amount of fine clothing is going to 80cover up the truth - these plug-ins are Bad with a capital B. 81They look fine on the outside, and might even appear to get the job done, but 82at the end of the day they're a black sheep. Without a golden-haired angel 83to watch over them, they'll probably land in an unmarked grave at the final 84showdown. 85 86Don't bug us about their quality - exercise your Free Software rights, 87patch up the offender and send us the patch on the fastest steed you can 88steal from the Confederates. Because you see, in this world, there's two 89kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig. 90You dig. 91 92The Lowdown 93----------- 94 95 --- "I've never seen so many plug-ins wasted so badly." 96 97GStreamer Plug-ins has grown so big that it's hard to separate the wheat from 98the chaff. Also, distributors have brought up issues about the legal status 99of some of the plug-ins we ship. To remedy this, we've divided the previous 100set of available plug-ins into four modules: 101 102- gst-plugins-base: a small and fixed set of plug-ins, covering a wide range 103 of possible types of elements; these are continuously kept up-to-date 104 with any core changes during the development series. 105 106 - We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins. 107 - People writing elements should base their code on these elements. 108 - These elements come with examples, documentation, and regression tests. 109 110- gst-plugins-good: a set of plug-ins that we consider to have good quality 111 code, correct functionality, our preferred license (LGPL for the plug-in 112 code, LGPL or LGPL-compatible for the supporting library). 113 114 - We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins. 115 - People writing elements should base their code on these elements. 116 117- gst-plugins-ugly: a set of plug-ins that have good quality and correct 118 functionality, but distributing them might pose problems. The license 119 on either the plug-ins or the supporting libraries might not be how we'd 120 like. The code might be widely known to present patent problems. 121 122 - Distributors should check if they want/can ship these plug-ins. 123 - People writing elements should base their code on these elements. 124 125- gst-plugins-bad: a set of plug-ins that aren't up to par compared to the 126 rest. They might be close to being good quality, but they're missing 127 something - be it a good code review, some documentation, a set of tests, 128 a real live maintainer, or some actual wide use. 129 If the blanks are filled in they might be upgraded to become part of 130 either gst-plugins-good or gst-plugins-ugly, depending on the other factors. 131 132 - If the plug-ins break, you can't complain - instead, you can fix the 133 problem and send us a patch, or bribe someone into fixing them for you. 134 - New contributors can start here for things to work on. 135 136PLATFORMS 137--------- 138 139- Linux is of course fully supported 140- FreeBSD is reported to work; other BSDs should work too 141- Solaris is reported to work; a specific sunaudiosink plugin has been written 142- MacOSX works, binary 1.x packages can be built using the cerbero build tool 143- Windows works; binary 1.x packages can be built using the cerbero build tool 144 - MSys/MinGW builds 145 - Microsoft Visual Studio builds are not yet available or supported 146- Android works, binary 1.x packages can be built using the cerbero build tool 147- iOS works 148 149INSTALLING FROM PACKAGES 150------------------------ 151 152You should always prefer installing from packages first. GStreamer is 153well-maintained for a number of distributions, including Fedora, Debian, 154Ubuntu, Mandrake, Gentoo, ... 155 156Only in cases where you: 157- want to hack on GStreamer 158- want to verify that a bug has been fixed 159- do not have a sane distribution 160should you choose to build from source tarballs or git. 161 162Find more information about the various packages at 163http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/ 164 165COMPILING FROM SOURCE TARBALLS 166------------------------------ 167 168- again, make sure that you really need to install from source ! 169 If GStreamer is one of your first projects ever that you build from source, 170 consider taking on an easier project. 171 172- check output of ./configure --help to see if any options apply to you 173- run 174 ./configure 175 make 176 177 to build GStreamer. 178- if you want to install it (not required, but what you usually want to do), run 179 make install 180 181- try out a simple test: 182 gst-launch -v fakesrc num_buffers=5 ! fakesink 183 (If you didn't install GStreamer, prefix gst-launch with tools/) 184 185 If it outputs a bunch of messages from fakesrc and fakesink, everything is 186 ok. 187 188 If it did not work, keep in mind that you might need to adjust the 189 PATH and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables to make the system 190 find GStreamer in the prefix where you installed (by default that is /usr/local). 191 192- After this, you're ready to install gst-plugins, which will provide the 193 functionality you're probably looking for by now, so go on and read 194 that README. 195 196COMPILING FROM GIT 197------------------ 198 199When building from git sources, you will need to run autogen.sh to generate 200the build system files. 201 202You will need a set of additional tools typical for building from git, 203including: 204- autoconf 205- automake 206- libtool 207 208autogen.sh will check for recent enough versions and complain if you don't have 209them. You can also specify specific versions of automake and autoconf with 210--with-automake and --with-autoconf 211 212Check autogen.sh options by running autogen.sh --help 213 214autogen.sh can pass on arguments to configure 215 216When you have done this once, you can use autoregen.sh to re-autogen with 217the last passed options as a handy shortcut. Use it. 218 219After the autogen.sh stage, you can follow the directions listed in 220"COMPILING FROM SOURCE" 221 222You can also run your whole git stack uninstalled in your home directory, 223so that you can quickly test changes without affecting your system setup or 224interfering with GStreamer installed from packages. Many GStreamer developers 225use an uninstalled setup for their work. 226 227There is a 'create-uninstalled-setup.sh' script in 228 229 http://cgit.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/tree/scripts/ 230 231to easily create an uninstalled setup from scratch. 232 233 234PLUG-IN DEPENDENCIES AND LICENSES 235--------------------------------- 236 237GStreamer is developed under the terms of the LGPL (see LICENSE file for 238details). Some of our plug-ins however rely on libraries which are available 239under other licenses. This means that if you are distributing an application 240which has a non-GPL compatible license (for instance a closed-source 241application) with GStreamer, you have to make sure not to distribute GPL-linked 242plug-ins. 243 244When using GPL-linked plug-ins, GStreamer is for all practical reasons 245under the GPL itself. 246 247HISTORY 248------- 249 250The fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate 251Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectMedia. It's based on plug-ins that 252will provide the various codec and other functionality. The interface 253hopefully is generic enough for various companies (ahem, Apple) to release 254binary codecs for Linux, until such time as they get a clue and release the 255source. 256