README - imx-gstreamer - Git at Google

 WHAT IT IS
 ----------

 This is GStreamer, a framework for streaming media.

 WHERE TO START
 --------------

 We have a website at
 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/

 You should start by going through our FAQ at
 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/

 There is more documentation; go to
 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation

 You can subscribe to our mailing lists; see the website for details.

 We track bugs in GNOME's bugzilla; see the website for details.

 You can join us on IRC - #gstreamer on irc.freenode.org

 GStreamer 0.10 series
 ---------------------

 Starring

   GSTREAMER

 The core around which all other modules revolve.  Base functionality and
 libraries, some essential elements, documentation, and testing.

   BASE

 A well-groomed and well-maintained collection of GStreamer plug-ins and
 elements, spanning the range of possible types of elements one would want
 to write for GStreamer.

 And introducing, for the first time ever, on the development screen ...

   THE GOOD

  --- "Such ingratitude.  After all the times I've saved your life."

 A collection of plug-ins you'd want to have right next to you on the
 battlefield.  Shooting sharp and making no mistakes, these plug-ins have it
 all: good looks, good code, and good licensing.  Documented and dressed up
 in tests.  If you're looking for a role model to base your own plug-in on,
 here it is.

 If you find a plot hole or a badly lip-synced line of code in them,
 let us know - it is a matter of honour for us to ensure Blondie doesn't look
 like he's been walking 100 miles through the desert without water.

   THE UGLY

   --- "When you have to shoot, shoot.  Don't talk."

 There are times when the world needs a color between black and white.
 Quality code to match the good's, but two-timing, backstabbing and ready to
 sell your freedom down the river.  These plug-ins might have a patent noose
 around their neck, or a lock-up license, or any other problem that makes you
 think twice about shipping them.

 We don't call them ugly because we like them less.  Does a mother love her
 son less because he's not as pretty as the other ones ? No  - she commends
 him on his great personality.  These plug-ins are the life of the party.
 And we'll still step in and set them straight if you report any unacceptable
 behaviour - because there are two kinds of people in the world, my friend:
 those with a rope around their neck and the people who do the cutting.

   THE BAD

   --- "That an accusation?"

 No perfectly groomed moustache or any amount of fine clothing is going to
 cover up the truth - these plug-ins are Bad with a capital B.
 They look fine on the outside, and might even appear to get the job done, but
 at the end of the day they're a black sheep. Without a golden-haired angel
 to watch over them, they'll probably land in an unmarked grave at the final
 showdown.

 Don't bug us about their quality - exercise your Free Software rights,
 patch up the offender and send us the patch on the fastest steed you can
 steal from the Confederates. Because you see, in this world, there's two
 kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig.
 You dig.

 The Lowdown
 -----------

   --- "I've never seen so many plug-ins wasted so badly."

 GStreamer Plug-ins has grown so big that it's hard to separate the wheat from
 the chaff.  Also, distributors have brought up issues about the legal status
 of some of the plug-ins we ship.  To remedy this, we've divided the previous
 set of available plug-ins into four modules:

 - gst-plugins-base: a small and fixed set of plug-ins, covering a wide range
   of possible types of elements; these are continuously kept up-to-date
   with any core changes during the development series.

   - We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
   - People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
   - These elements come with examples, documentation, and regression tests.

 - gst-plugins-good: a set of plug-ins that we consider to have good quality
   code, correct functionality, our preferred license (LGPL for the plug-in
   code, LGPL or LGPL-compatible for the supporting library).

   - We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
   - People writing elements should base their code on these elements.

 - gst-plugins-ugly: a set of plug-ins that have good quality and correct
   functionality, but distributing them might pose problems.  The license
   on either the plug-ins or the supporting libraries might not be how we'd
   like. The code might be widely known to present patent problems.

   - Distributors should check if they want/can ship these plug-ins.
   - People writing elements should base their code on these elements.

 - gst-plugins-bad: a set of plug-ins that aren't up to par compared to the
   rest.  They might be close to being good quality, but they're missing
   something - be it a good code review, some documentation, a set of tests,
   a real live maintainer, or some actual wide use.
   If the blanks are filled in they might be upgraded to become part of
   either gst-plugins-good or gst-plugins-ugly, depending on the other factors.

   - If the plug-ins break, you can't complain - instead, you can fix the
     problem and send us a patch, or bribe someone into fixing them for you.
   - New contributors can start here for things to work on.

 PLATFORMS
 ---------

 - Linux is of course fully supported
 - FreeBSD is reported to work; other BSD's should work too
 - Solaris is reported to work; a specific sunaudiosink plugin has been written
 - MacOSX is reported to work; specific audio and video sinks have been written
 - Windows support is experimental but improving.  Output sinks have been
   written but are not yet included in the code. We support
   - MSys/MingW builds
   - Microsoft Visual Studio 6 builds (see win32/README.txt)

 INSTALLING FROM PACKAGES
 ------------------------

 You should always prefer installing from packages first.  GStreamer is
 well-maintained for a number of distributions, including Fedora, Debian,
 Ubuntu, Mandrake, Gentoo, ...

 Only in cases where you:
 - want to hack on GStreamer
 - want to verify that a bug has been fixed
 - do not have a sane distribution
 should you choose to build from source tarballs or CVS.

 Find more information about the various packages at
 http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/

 COMPILING FROM SOURCE TARBALLS
 ------------------------------

 - again, make sure that you really need to install from source !
   If GStreamer is one of your first projects ever that you build from source,
   consider taking on an easier project.

 - check output of ./configure --help to see if any options apply to you
 - run
   ./configure
   make

   to build GStreamer.
 - if you want to install it (not required, but what you usually want to do), run
   make install

 - try out a simple test:
   gst-launch -v fakesrc num_buffers=5 ! fakesink
   (If you didn't install GStreamer, prefix gst-launch with tools/)

   If it outputs a bunch of messages from fakesrc and fakesink, everything is
   ok.

   If it did not work, keep in mind that you might need to adjust the
   PATH and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables to make the system
   find GStreamer in the prefix where you installed (by default that is /usr/local).

 - After this, you're ready to install gst-plugins, which will provide the
   functionality you're probably looking for by now, so go on and read
   that README.

 COMPILING FROM CVS
 ------------------

 When building from CVS sources, you will need to run autogen.sh to generate
 the build system files.

 You will need a set of additional tools typical for building from CVS,
 including:
 - autoconf
 - automake
 - libtool

 autogen.sh will check for recent enough versions and complain if you don't have
 them.  You can also specify specific versions of automake and autoconf with
 --with-automake and --with-autoconf

 Check autogen.sh options by running autogen.sh --help

 autogen.sh can pass on arguments to configure - you just need to separate them
 from autogen.sh with -- between the two.
 prefix has been added to autogen.sh but will be passed on to configure because
 some build scripts like that.

 When you have done this once, you can use autoregen.sh to re-autogen with
 the last passed options as a handy shortcut.  Use it.

 After the autogen.sh stage, you can follow the directions listed in
 "COMPILING FROM SOURCE"

 You can also run your whole cvs stack uninstalled.  The script in
 the gstreamer module /docs/faq/gst-uninstalled) is helpful in setting
 up your environment for this.

 PLUG-IN DEPENDENCIES AND LICENSES
 ---------------------------------

 GStreamer is developed under the terms of the LGPL (see LICENSE file for
 details). Some of our plug-ins however rely on libraries which are available
 under other licenses. This means that if you are distributing an application
 which has a non-GPL compatible license (for instance a closed-source
 application) with GStreamer, you have to make sure not to distribute GPL-linked
 plug-ins.

 When using GPL-linked plug-ins, GStreamer is for all practical reasons
 under the GPL itself.

 HISTORY
 -------

 The fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate
 Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectMedia.  It's based on plug-ins that
 will provide the various codec and other functionality.  The interface
 hopefully is generic enough for various companies (ahem, Apple) to release
 binary codecs for Linux, until such time as they get a clue and release the
 source.
	WHAT IT IS
	----------

	This is GStreamer, a framework for streaming media.

	WHERE TO START
	--------------

	We have a website at
	http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/

	You should start by going through our FAQ at
	http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/

	There is more documentation; go to
	http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation

	You can subscribe to our mailing lists; see the website for details.

	We track bugs in GNOME's bugzilla; see the website for details.

	You can join us on IRC - #gstreamer on irc.freenode.org

	GStreamer 0.10 series
	---------------------

	Starring

	GSTREAMER

	The core around which all other modules revolve. Base functionality and
	libraries, some essential elements, documentation, and testing.

	BASE

	A well-groomed and well-maintained collection of GStreamer plug-ins and
	elements, spanning the range of possible types of elements one would want
	to write for GStreamer.

	And introducing, for the first time ever, on the development screen ...

	THE GOOD

	--- "Such ingratitude. After all the times I've saved your life."

	A collection of plug-ins you'd want to have right next to you on the
	battlefield. Shooting sharp and making no mistakes, these plug-ins have it
	all: good looks, good code, and good licensing. Documented and dressed up
	in tests. If you're looking for a role model to base your own plug-in on,
	here it is.

	If you find a plot hole or a badly lip-synced line of code in them,
	let us know - it is a matter of honour for us to ensure Blondie doesn't look
	like he's been walking 100 miles through the desert without water.

	THE UGLY

	--- "When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

	There are times when the world needs a color between black and white.
	Quality code to match the good's, but two-timing, backstabbing and ready to
	sell your freedom down the river. These plug-ins might have a patent noose
	around their neck, or a lock-up license, or any other problem that makes you
	think twice about shipping them.

	We don't call them ugly because we like them less. Does a mother love her
	son less because he's not as pretty as the other ones ? No - she commends
	him on his great personality. These plug-ins are the life of the party.
	And we'll still step in and set them straight if you report any unacceptable
	behaviour - because there are two kinds of people in the world, my friend:
	those with a rope around their neck and the people who do the cutting.

	THE BAD

	--- "That an accusation?"

	No perfectly groomed moustache or any amount of fine clothing is going to
	cover up the truth - these plug-ins are Bad with a capital B.
	They look fine on the outside, and might even appear to get the job done, but
	at the end of the day they're a black sheep. Without a golden-haired angel
	to watch over them, they'll probably land in an unmarked grave at the final
	showdown.

	Don't bug us about their quality - exercise your Free Software rights,
	patch up the offender and send us the patch on the fastest steed you can
	steal from the Confederates. Because you see, in this world, there's two
	kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns and those who dig.
	You dig.

	The Lowdown
	-----------

	--- "I've never seen so many plug-ins wasted so badly."

	GStreamer Plug-ins has grown so big that it's hard to separate the wheat from
	the chaff. Also, distributors have brought up issues about the legal status
	of some of the plug-ins we ship. To remedy this, we've divided the previous
	set of available plug-ins into four modules:

	- gst-plugins-base: a small and fixed set of plug-ins, covering a wide range
	of possible types of elements; these are continuously kept up-to-date
	with any core changes during the development series.

	- We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
	- People writing elements should base their code on these elements.
	- These elements come with examples, documentation, and regression tests.

	- gst-plugins-good: a set of plug-ins that we consider to have good quality
	code, correct functionality, our preferred license (LGPL for the plug-in
	code, LGPL or LGPL-compatible for the supporting library).

	- We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins.
	- People writing elements should base their code on these elements.

	- gst-plugins-ugly: a set of plug-ins that have good quality and correct
	functionality, but distributing them might pose problems. The license
	on either the plug-ins or the supporting libraries might not be how we'd
	like. The code might be widely known to present patent problems.

	- Distributors should check if they want/can ship these plug-ins.
	- People writing elements should base their code on these elements.

	- gst-plugins-bad: a set of plug-ins that aren't up to par compared to the
	rest. They might be close to being good quality, but they're missing
	something - be it a good code review, some documentation, a set of tests,
	a real live maintainer, or some actual wide use.
	If the blanks are filled in they might be upgraded to become part of
	either gst-plugins-good or gst-plugins-ugly, depending on the other factors.

	- If the plug-ins break, you can't complain - instead, you can fix the
	problem and send us a patch, or bribe someone into fixing them for you.
	- New contributors can start here for things to work on.

	PLATFORMS
	---------

	- Linux is of course fully supported
	- FreeBSD is reported to work; other BSD's should work too
	- Solaris is reported to work; a specific sunaudiosink plugin has been written
	- MacOSX is reported to work; specific audio and video sinks have been written
	- Windows support is experimental but improving. Output sinks have been
	written but are not yet included in the code. We support
	- MSys/MingW builds
	- Microsoft Visual Studio 6 builds (see win32/README.txt)

	INSTALLING FROM PACKAGES
	------------------------

	You should always prefer installing from packages first. GStreamer is
	well-maintained for a number of distributions, including Fedora, Debian,
	Ubuntu, Mandrake, Gentoo, ...

	Only in cases where you:
	- want to hack on GStreamer
	- want to verify that a bug has been fixed
	- do not have a sane distribution
	should you choose to build from source tarballs or CVS.

	Find more information about the various packages at
	http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/

	COMPILING FROM SOURCE TARBALLS
	------------------------------

	- again, make sure that you really need to install from source !
	If GStreamer is one of your first projects ever that you build from source,
	consider taking on an easier project.

	- check output of ./configure --help to see if any options apply to you
	- run
	./configure
	make

	to build GStreamer.
	- if you want to install it (not required, but what you usually want to do), run
	make install

	- try out a simple test:
	gst-launch -v fakesrc num_buffers=5 ! fakesink
	(If you didn't install GStreamer, prefix gst-launch with tools/)

	If it outputs a bunch of messages from fakesrc and fakesink, everything is
	ok.

	If it did not work, keep in mind that you might need to adjust the
	PATH and/or LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables to make the system
	find GStreamer in the prefix where you installed (by default that is /usr/local).

	- After this, you're ready to install gst-plugins, which will provide the
	functionality you're probably looking for by now, so go on and read
	that README.

	COMPILING FROM CVS
	------------------

	When building from CVS sources, you will need to run autogen.sh to generate
	the build system files.

	You will need a set of additional tools typical for building from CVS,
	including:
	- autoconf
	- automake
	- libtool

	autogen.sh will check for recent enough versions and complain if you don't have
	them. You can also specify specific versions of automake and autoconf with
	--with-automake and --with-autoconf

	Check autogen.sh options by running autogen.sh --help

	autogen.sh can pass on arguments to configure - you just need to separate them
	from autogen.sh with -- between the two.
	prefix has been added to autogen.sh but will be passed on to configure because
	some build scripts like that.

	When you have done this once, you can use autoregen.sh to re-autogen with
	the last passed options as a handy shortcut. Use it.

	After the autogen.sh stage, you can follow the directions listed in
	"COMPILING FROM SOURCE"

	You can also run your whole cvs stack uninstalled. The script in
	the gstreamer module /docs/faq/gst-uninstalled) is helpful in setting
	up your environment for this.

	PLUG-IN DEPENDENCIES AND LICENSES
	---------------------------------

	GStreamer is developed under the terms of the LGPL (see LICENSE file for
	details). Some of our plug-ins however rely on libraries which are available
	under other licenses. This means that if you are distributing an application
	which has a non-GPL compatible license (for instance a closed-source
	application) with GStreamer, you have to make sure not to distribute GPL-linked
	plug-ins.

	When using GPL-linked plug-ins, GStreamer is for all practical reasons
	under the GPL itself.

	HISTORY
	-------

	The fundamental design comes from the video pipeline at Oregon Graduate
	Institute, as well as some ideas from DirectMedia. It's based on plug-ins that
	will provide the various codec and other functionality. The interface
	hopefully is generic enough for various companies (ahem, Apple) to release
	binary codecs for Linux, until such time as they get a clue and release the
	source.