4 This is GStreamer, a framework for streaming media.
6 This package is in the 0.9.x series. This means that this is a
7 development series leading up to a stable 0.10.x series.
14 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
16 You should start by going through our FAQ at
17 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/
19 There is more documentation; go to
20 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation
22 You can subscribe to our mailing lists; see the website for details.
24 We track bugs in GNOME's bugzilla; see the website for details.
26 You can join us on IRC - #gstreamer on irc.freenode.org
28 GStreamer 0.9 development series - Hung by a Thread
29 ---------------------------------------------------
35 The core around which all other modules revolve. Base functionality and
36 libraries, some essential elements, documentation, and testing.
40 A well-groomed and well-maintained collection of GStreamer plug-ins and
41 elements, spanning the range of possible types of elements one would want
42 to write for GStreamer.
44 And introducing, for the first time ever, on the development screen ...
48 --- "Such ingratitude. After all the times I've saved your life."
50 A collection of plug-ins you'd want to have right next to you on the
51 battlefield. Shooting sharp and making no mistakes, these plug-ins have it
52 all: good looks, good code, and good licensing. Documented and dressed up
53 in tests. If you're looking for a role model to base your own plug-in on,
56 If you find a plot hole or a badly lip-synced line of code in them,
57 let us know - it is a matter of honour for us to ensure Blondie doesn't look
58 like he's been walking 100 miles through the desert without water.
62 --- "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."
64 There are times when the world needs a color between black and white.
65 Quality code to match the good's, but two-timing, backstabbing and ready to
66 sell your freedom down the river. These plug-ins might have a patent noose
67 around their neck, or a lock-up license, or any other problem that makes you
68 think twice about shipping them.
70 We don't call them ugly because we like them less. Does a mother love her
71 son less because he's not as pretty as the other ones ? No - she commends
72 him on his great personality. These plug-ins are the life of the party.
73 And we'll still step in and set them straight if you report any unacceptable
74 behaviour - because there are two kinds of people in the world, my friend:
75 those with a rope around their neck and the people who do the cutting.
79 --- "That an accusation?"
81 No perfectly groomed moustache or any amount of fine clothing is going to
82 cover up the truth - these plug-ins are Bad with a capital B.
83 They look fine on the outside, and might even appear to get the job done, but
84 at the end of the day they're a black sheep. Without a golden-haired angel
85 to watch over them, they'll probably land in an unmarked grave at the final
88 Don't bug us about their quality - exercise your Free Software rights,
89 patch up the offender and send us the patch on the fastest steed you can
90 steal from the Confederates. Because you see, in this world, there's two
91 kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig.
97 --- "I've never seen so many plug-ins wasted so badly."
99 GStreamer Plug-ins has grown so big that it's hard to separate the wheat from
100 the chaff. Also, distributors have brought up issues about the legal status
101 of some of the plug-ins we ship. To remedy this, we've divided the previous
102 set of available plug-ins into four modules:
104 - gst-plugins-base: a small and fixed set of plug-ins, covering a wide range
105 of possible types of elements; these are continuously kept up-to-date
106 with any core changes during the development series.
108 - We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
109 - People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
110 - These elements come with examples, documentation, and regression tests.
112 - gst-plugins-good: a set of plug-ins that we consider to have good quality
113 code, correct functionality, our preferred license (LGPL for the plug-in
114 code, LGPL or LGPL-compatible for the supporting library).
116 - We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
117 - People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
119 - gst-plugins-ugly: a set of plug-ins that have good quality and correct
120 functionality, but distributing them might pose problems. The license
121 on either the plug-ins or the supporting libraries might not be how we'd
122 like. The code might be widely known to present patent problems.
124 - Distributors should check if they want/can ship these plug-ins.
125 - People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
127 - gst-plugins-bad: a set of plug-ins that aren't up to par compared to the
128 rest. They might be close to being good quality, but they're missing
129 something - be it a good code review, some documentation, a set of tests,
130 a real live maintainer, or some actual wide use.
131 If the blanks are filled in they might be upgraded to become part of
132 either gst-plugins-good or gst-plugins-ugly, depending on the other factors.
134 - If the plug-ins break, you can't complain - instead, you can fix the
135 problem and send us a patch, or bribe someone into fixing them for you.
136 - New contributors can start here for things to work on.
141 - Linux is of course fully supported
142 - FreeBSD is reported to work; other BSD's should work too
143 - Solaris is reported to work; a specific sunaudiosink plugin has been written
144 - MacOSX is reported to work; specific audio and video sinks have been written
145 - Windows support is experimental but improving. Output sinks have been
146 written but are not yet included in the code. We support
148 - Microsoft Visual Studio 6 builds (see win32/README.txt)
150 INSTALLING FROM PACKAGES
151 ------------------------
153 You should always prefer installing from packages first. GStreamer is
154 well-maintained for a number of distributions, including Fedora, Debian,
155 Ubuntu, Mandrake, Gentoo, ...
157 Only in cases where you:
158 - want to hack on GStreamer
159 - want to verify that a bug has been fixed
160 - do not have a sane distribution
161 should you choose to build from source tarballs or CVS.
163 Find more information about the various packages at
164 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/
166 COMPILING FROM SOURCE TARBALLS
167 ------------------------------
169 - again, make sure that you really need to install from source !
170 If GStreamer is one of your first projects ever that you build from source,
171 consider taking on an easier project.
173 - check output of ./configure --help to see if any options apply to you
179 - if you want to install it (not required, but what you usually want to do), run
182 - try out a simple test:
183 gst-launch -v fakesrc num_buffers=5 ! fakesink
184 (If you didn't install GStreamer, prefix gst-launch with tools/)
186 If it outputs a bunch of messages from fakesrc and fakesink, everything is
189 If it did not work, keep in mind that you might need to adjust the
190 PATH and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables to make the system
191 find GStreamer in the prefix where you installed (by default that is /usr/local).
193 - After this, you're ready to install gst-plugins, which will provide the
194 functionality you're probably looking for by now, so go on and read
200 When building from CVS sources, you will need to run autogen.sh to generate
201 the build system files.
203 You will need a set of additional tools typical for building from CVS,
209 autogen.sh will check for recent enough versions and complain if you don't have
210 them. You can also specify specific versions of automake and autoconf with
211 --with-automake and --with-autoconf
213 Check autogen.sh options by running autogen.sh --help
215 autogen.sh can pass on arguments to configure - you just need to separate them
216 from autogen.sh with -- between the two.
217 prefix has been added to autogen.sh but will be passed on to configure because
218 some build scripts like that.
220 When you have done this once, you can use autoregen.sh to re-autogen with
221 the last passed options as a handy shortcut. Use it.
223 After the autogen.sh stage, you can follow the directions listed in
224 "COMPILING FROM SOURCE"
226 You can also run your whole cvs stack uninstalled. The script in
227 the gstreamer module /docs/faq/gst-uninstalled) is helpful in setting
228 up your environment for this.
230 PLUG-IN DEPENDENCIES AND LICENSES
231 ---------------------------------
233 GStreamer is developed under the terms of the LGPL (see LICENSE file for
234 details). Some of our plug-ins however rely on libraries which are available
235 under other licenses. This means that if you are distributing an application
236 which has a non-GPL compatible license (for instance a closed-source
237 application) with GStreamer, you have to make sure not to distribute GPL-linked
240 When using GPL-linked plug-ins, GStreamer is for all practical reasons
241 under the GPL itself.
246 The fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate
247 Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectMedia. It's based on plug-ins that
248 will provide the various codec and other functionality. The interface
249 hopefully is generic enough for various companies (ahem, Apple) to release
250 binary codecs for Linux, until such time as they get a clue and release the