On 11/05/2011 11:57 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 2:02 AM, Yasha Karant<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>> I am attempting to install vlc-1.1.11-72.el5.i386.rpm from
>> http://packages.atrpms.net/dist/el5/vlc/
>>
>> There is a long list of dependencies missing, appended below.  Is there a
>> way to specify to get just these packages from ATrpms without "damaging" the
>> underlying production EL 5.7 system (e.g., replacing SL packages by other
>> packages from ATrpms that then cause problems and instability with EL 5.7)?
>>   Is there another add-on EL 5 RPM repository that requires fewer additions
>> to stock EL 5.7 but still has a vlc 1.x version?
>
> First warning: vlc supports MPEG formats and playing DVD's. There are
> various patents and reverse engineering legal issues which interfere
> with open source and especially genuine freeware licensing or
> deployment of such software. This is why such tools are not in our
> favorite upstream vendor's codeline, nor will they be, unless such
> cumbersome licensing can be resolved. Since VLC can typically deal
> with DVD's, there's the whole libdvdcss sawsuit history that makes it
> unavailable for our favorite upstream vendor's core distributions. So
> it's *not* going to work fully without such non-Scientific-Linux
> provided components, unless our friends at Scientific Linux were to
> take that on. I don't see a point to that when atrpms and the other
> repositories are doiing such a good job.
>
> That said, if you're in a legal position to use these patented
> software tools, and you suspect some of the dependencies are
> extraneous, you can use "mock" to try building the SRPM in a clean SL
> 5.7 environment. I can send you, or the group, my /etc/mock files for
> using a local repo for precisely this sort of work. It's much, much,
> much more efficient to use "mock" from local repositories than
> reaching out to external mirrors, and different configs to work with
> JPackage or RPMforge repos as well. This keeps from cluttering your
> working system with a lot of libraries and dependencies that may cause
> other adventures.
>
> But Yasha, VLC is a powerful and flexible multimedia player, It
> *needs* access to those libraries in order to manage even half of the
> different formats and encodings it manages.

Thank you.  I am (well) aware of the power of VLC, particularly compared 
with a number of other offerings/applications, both open systems and 
proprietary for fee.  Although I would very much like to comment upon 
the issues you have raised concerning the reading and use of legally 
purchased and owned for-personal-use DVDs across region codes, as this 
list repeatedly has stated that it is strictly technology for 
technicians/technologists and devoid of any intellectual issues or 
discussions -- including societal issues as required under the ACM code 
of ethics, I shall not take the bait.

I would very much appreciate it if you would provide the tools, syntax, 
etc., for the needed mock build environment, as I presume that the 
resulting containment is "safer" than allowing ATrpms to have free reign 
(and free update requests) for a production end-user stable EL workstation.

Yasha Karant