Bug#694257: fdk-aac: who knows more?

["Adam M. Costello" <bug.amc+6+@nicemice.net>]

Fabian Greffrath <fabian@greffrath.com>:

> Is fdk-aac finally the first *free* high-quality AAC encoder or is it
> just the next *non-free* one after FAAC?

>From what I've read, FAAC is not a high-quality AAC encoder.  As far as
I know, fdk-aac is the only high-quality open-source AAC encoder.

I don't know if fdk-aac is DFSG-free, or GPL-compatible, but even if
it's neither, Debian could still package it, right?  There's also a
command-line tool, fdkaac, that uses it.

Of course, the library would be much more useful if avconv could use it.
If libfdk-aac is GPL-incompatible, what does that imply?  That avconv
must not require libfdk-aac to be present at runtime?  Could it check
for the existence of libfdk-aac and dlopen() it if it's found?  Would
that make them independent enough that their licenses wouldn't need to
be compatible?

It's a shame that various open-source licenses fight each other and thus
impede rather than promote the development of free software.

AMC