Debian versus MPlayer

Cause

To understand the debate, one must look back at the history of interactions between the two bodies, and it is certainly an acrimonious one. The initial reason for there to be any interaction at all is that, as explained, the MPlayer developers had produced a popular piece of software which runs on Linux, and Debian typically makes popular pieces of Linux software available for download from its servers, in the .deb package format. This means that a Debian developer would have to go through the process of making a .deb containing the software, and which follows Debian’s strict packaging guidelines, assuming that the packaging was agreed to in principle. A critical step towards this is passing the ITP stage, as documented by Debian’s Developer’s Reference, and it is a sign of how long-standing and contentious this issue is that there are at least two ITP entries for MPlayer, the earlier one dating back to 2001.

As quickly became clear in the responses to those ITP reports, there were aspects of MPlayer that many felt made it impossible to package for Debian, or at least not without exposing Debian to excessive legal risks. Firstly, and most obviously, was the fact that MPlayer included audio and video encoding software which may have implemented algorithms which were patented in some jurisdictions, the patents being held by companies with a history of litigiousness. Some even argued that parts of its decoding software might be similarly encumbered. Moreover, MPlayer was connected to libdvdcss for decrypting DVDs, and the famous DeCSS software had been the subject of a lawsuit already in America. In MPlayer’s defence, however, it would be quite possible to separate the encoding and decrypting parts, leaving software which is no more a risk to Debian than other software already in their archive. Secondly, however, was the issue of whether the MPlayer code was Free software or even whether it was legally distributable at all, a requirement for which being that all the source files contain valid license statements giving permission for Debian to package and redistribute it. Unfortunately, some people found evidence of MPlayer being non-Free, and non-distributable, an argument for the latter even involving a strict interpretation of the GPL’s requirement that modifications be declared.

The time had come

This apparent impasse lead to a status quo which was eventually summarised in 2005 as part of a renewed effort to fix the outstanding issues, not least with help from the MPlayer team. It was this effort which went on to produce a package from within Debian which managed to survive the immediate wrath of the FTP masters and was allowed to settle on the NEW queue among other packages. The FTP masters were capricious, however, since, while not dismissing the idea of MPlayer out of hand, they were not prepared to let it through either, resulting in it languishing in the NEW queue with record waiting times. For months it would sit there, while the FTP masters assured the project that they were very busy, its status only changing with the occasional new release of MPlayer being packaged to replace the old one in the queue, destined to the same fate.

It was here that Debian seemed at its most unreasonable, as if it were determined to find reasons to prevent MPlayer from entering when there was none. It had almost become a badge of shame for Debian, with the MPlayer people justifiably pointing out apparent prejudicial contradictions in Debian’s policy. All the while, most Debian users were not being shown that the project they relied on held the moral high ground, instead it seemed to be counter-productive, leading many to resort to downloading MPlayer from a third party — the famous Marillat package repository, now Debian Multimedia. It should not be under-estimated the amount of effort that Christian Marillat put in to making these packages available to the community, and the risk he took in doing so. What is even more commendable, though, is that despite this apparent opposition to Debian’s policies, he was and still is a committed Debian developer. This example of contributing to a group that agrees with you on the important things, even when it disagrees with you on minor things, is something that should be remembered.

Final success

Things could have stayed like this indefinitely, with MPlayer neither being accepted nor formally rejected by Debian. This situation was particularly difficult to overcome, according to the “tinder box” theory, because people were reluctant to raise issues (or deal with them objectively) given all the old arguments that could have resurfaced, igniting to start a flame war. I am glad to say, however, that Debian stayed true to their Social Contract, which commits them to ensuring “[their] priorities are [their] users and free software.” On 2006-10-25, Debian “Accepted mplayer 1.0~rc1~svn20199-1” into their archive, in the unstable suite (and perhaps no conclusions should be drawn from the fact that in that email, sent as part of the upload, the date given was Friday the 13th of that month). Two versions of the package have since migrated into the testing suite, ready for inclusion in the next Debian stable release, Etch.

Debian has faced numerous problems over the years, not least in terms of its timeliness to make a stable release and to accept packages into its archive — either just the latest version of the package, or including that piece of software at all. Throughout, however, the project has managed to move forwards and achieve its aims and high standards. This saga perhaps best exemplifies some of the criticisms levelled against it, and I believe that the end result also vindicates Debian’s way of doing things. At the very least, Debian is one of many ways of doing things, and its existence alongside other GNU/Linux distributions, not least [Ubuntu], shows that it is filling a useful place in the ecosystem. As for MPlayer, it is still an award-winning piece of software and may even have benefited from Debian’s strictness. That is not to say that MPlayer does not still have significant weaknesses, but future interaction between the two projects can only be more cordial than it has been.

Does this mean I can’t use my old Debian joke from 2006-02 any more?: