As Jeremy just informed us, the Debian project has decided to switch from libav to ffmpeg:

Debian Moves to FFmpeg and Drops Libav

That post links to a wiki page detailing the reasons for Debian's decision.

https://wiki.debian.org/Debate/libav-provider/ffmpeg

According to that page, one of the factors that the Debian maintainers looked at when coming to their decision was: well, what did the other distributions choose?

So the Debian project looked at Slackware as an example to follow.

I think this is pretty cool, personally.

As a Debian user I do also. I know Debian does all sorts of un-Slack things like starting services by default on install and, for that matter, installing them in the first place. But, I think the two are similar in many ways. Hard to put into words but sort-of "Here's a really good distro and here is how you install and use it, read and enjoy". I suppose "no ulterior motive" is some of it with the emphasis on producing a good, working system -- no marketing and the like to speak of ( definately not to criticise either Slackware or Debian's maintainers about "getting it out there" it's a real compliment).

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A sad day for the libav project. Their bugs will go unresolved (and even unreported) for even longer without the massive amounts of Debian users / developers reporting and patching the project. I don't understand why there had to be a debate about replacing a piece of software with so many obvious problems.

I also think that Debian could learn a few things from Slackware. That was a pretty minor move considering the size of Debian.

It's like you've taken a microscope and slid only the single piece of the entire page under it.
It's a small piece of ancillary data.

You should work in journalism doing the headlines :-)

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It's called "focusing on what's relevant".

Slackware may influence many, but many do not influence Slackware... Praise Bob.

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Let's not be sectarians, please.

There are of course a lot of interesting features in other distributions. Keeping eyes and ears wide open is good and even necessary but doesn't preclude to take one's[1] own design or integration decisions.

[1]One being the BDFL in Slackware's case.

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To be totally fair I notice that there is also the possibility of using libav:

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14...timedia/libav/

I see the notice on this page about installing one or the other (FFmpeg) and I am sure there would be problems with other media scripts... Myself I have been a happy FFmpeg user since before the fork and I will welcome and end to the wrangling.

And of course Debian has much more to learn from Slackware

Or rather, focusing on what's irrelevant.

The original list looks like:

• Fedora

• Arch

• some irrelevant Mandriva forks (and after those comes, tadaa)

• Slackware

Sorry, i'm such a party pooper sometimes..

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Ubuntu's been a bigger influence on Debian than Slackware. Unfortunately. Should be the other way about.