This is a simple fix to allow people who choose to turn mp3 support off (ie, not installing mad/smpeg/etc) while still using sdl-mixer. This is in order to comply with section 11 of the LGPL, which restricts distribution when the software's use and/or distribution is impeded by software patents, whereas the MP3 licensing authority allows only cost-free decoders to be distributed without royalties and the GPL/LGPL permit for-cost distribution. In countries where their patents are recognized, all GPL/LGPL MP3 decoders are therefor not legally permitted to be distributed.
Created attachment 72048 [details] /usr/local/portage/media-libs/sdl-mixer/sdl-mixer-1.2.6-r2.ebuild
We are not crippling software because of stupid laws.
This is *NOT* an issue of crippling software in any way, this is only permitting users of sdl-mixer to choose not to compile it with mp3 support. This patch only has effect if the -mp3 flag is set, that is, if users wish to run a system without this proprietary codec installed. Most games/etc which use sdl-mixer use only Ogg Vorbis or PCM audio, and with those games, a version of sdl-mixer compiled with -mp3 works perfectly fine. The current ebuild, which installs MP3 decoding software even when the -mp3 flag is set, is clearly wrong behavior and is misleading to users who choose to set the -mp3 USE variable.
So what *exactly* did you change? If it is trivial, a patch against the ebuild would have been easier.
This is all that was changed: $ diff /usr/portage/media-libs/sdl-mixer/sdl-mixer-1.2.6-r1.ebuild /usr/local/portage/media-libs/sdl-mixer/sdl-mixer-1.2.6-r2.ebuild 18c18 < >=media-libs/smpeg-0.4.4-r1 --- > mp3? ( >=media-libs/smpeg-0.4.4-r1 )
...and now for the painful question. Do you have a list of the packages in the tree that *do* require SDL_mixer to be linked again smpeg? I don't want to make changes in the name of "choice" that end up breaking other packages and causing more work for myself and the rest of the games team.
if it was a real issue we would have seen it by now ... the ebuild has been passing --disable-music-mp3 for users with USE=-mp3 for a while now this bug is just fixing the DEPEND
Also, you'll need a patch for the configure scripts to make it actually allow one to build without smpeg, so it won't use any system smpeg already on the system. Essentially, I would say that this is well beyond the scope of what the games team wants to undertake. It means countless hours of work verifying each and every game in the tree that uses SDL_mixer in any way to ensure that they do not require this support. If you're willing to put in the work to do this on every game in the tree currently, then I have no problem adding this support to SDL_mixer. I will not, however, agree to dump this kind of a workload on my fellow developers. Feel free to REOPEN this with the requested information/patches.
re-opening because wolf is a tool
Yup. I'm a tool. Sorry about that. Your explanation wasn't very good on what really needed to be done and I didn't bother actually looking at what the ebuild was doing. From what I read, it sounded like we needed to *add* a way to remove mp3 support from sdl-mixer. Sorry about that. Anyway, I've fixed this in CVS now. Sorry for being such a dense asshat.
Thanks. After 8 months or so, it feels good to no longer have to patch my local copy everytime a version bump happens.. :-)
You could have filed the bug months ago... :P
