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><H1
CLASS="sect1"
><A
NAME="chapter-general"
>2. General</A
></H1
><DIV
CLASS="qandaset"
><DL
><DT
>2.1. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-media-player"
>Is GStreamer a media player ?</A
></DT
><DT
>2.2. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-why-c"
> Why is GStreamer written in C ? Why not C++/Objective-C/... ?
</A
></DT
><DT
>2.3. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-applications"
>What applications are available for GStreamer ?</A
></DT
><DT
>2.4. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-licensing"
> What are the exact licensing terms for GStreamer and its plugins ?
</A
></DT
><DT
>2.5. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-sound-server"
>Is GStreamer a sound server ?</A
></DT
><DT
>2.6. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-platforms"
> Will GStreamer be available for platforms other than Unix ?
</A
></DT
><DT
>2.7. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-gnome"
>What is GStreamer's relationship with the GNOME community ?</A
></DT
><DT
>2.8. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-kde"
>What is GStreamer's relationship with the KDE community ?</A
></DT
><DT
>2.9. <A
HREF="chapter-general.html#general-my-application"
> I'm considering adding GStreamer output to my application...
</A
></DT
></DL
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-media-player"
></A
><B
>2.1. </B
>Is GStreamer a media player ?</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
No, GStreamer is a development framework for creating applications like
media players, video editors, streaming media broadcasters and so on.
That said, very good media players can easily be built on top
of GStreamer and we even include a simple yet functional media player
with GStreamer, called gst-player.
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-why-c"
></A
><B
>2.2. </B
>
Why is GStreamer written in C ? Why not C++/Objective-C/... ?
</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
We like C. Aside from "personal preference", there are a number of technical
reasons why C is nice in this project:
<P
></P
><UL
><LI
><P
>C is extremely portable.</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>C is fast.</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>It is easy to make language bindings for libraries written in C.
</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>The GObject object system provided by GLib implements objects in C,
in a portable, powerful way. This library provides for introspection and
runtime dynamic typing. It is a full OO system, but without the syntactic
sugar. If you want sugar, take a look at
<A
HREF="http://www.5z.com/jirka/gob.html"
TARGET="_top"
>GOB</A
>.</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>Use of C integrates nicely with Gtk+ and GNOME. Some people like
this a lot, but neither Gtk+ nor GNOME are required by GStreamer.</P
></LI
></UL
>
</P
><P
> So, in closing, we like C. If you don't, that's fine; if you still want to
help out on GStreamer, we always need more language binding people. And if
not, don't bother us; we're working :-)
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-applications"
></A
><B
>2.3. </B
>What applications are available for GStreamer ?</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
GStreamer is still very early in its development, but already we see some
really nice applications being developed in parallel with GStreamer.
Both gst-player and gst-editor are very closely linked to GStreamer itself
for obvious reasons.
For a list of some of the more advanced projects, look at the list
in our <A
HREF="http://gstreamer.net/status/"
TARGET="_top"
>Status table</A
>.
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-licensing"
></A
><B
>2.4. </B
>
What are the exact licensing terms for GStreamer and its plugins ?
</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
All of GStreamer, including our own plugin code, is licensed under the
<A
HREF="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html"
TARGET="_top"
>GNU LGPL</A
> license.
Some of the libraries we use for some of the plugins are however under the
GPL, which means that those plugins can not be used by a non-GPL-compatible
application.
</P
><P
> As part of the GStreamer source download you find a file called
license_README. That file contains information in the exact licensing
terms of the libraries we use. As a general rule, GStreamer aims at using
only LGPL or BSD licensed libraries if available and only use GPL or
proprietary libraries where no good LGPL or BSD alternatives are available.
</P
><P
> From GStreamer 0.4.2 on, we implemented a license field for all of the plugins,
and in the future we might have the application enforce a stricter policy
(much like tainting in the kernel).
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-sound-server"
></A
><B
>2.5. </B
>Is GStreamer a sound server ?</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
No, GStreamer is not a soundserver. GStreamer does however have plugins
supporting most of the major soundservers available today, including
ESD, aRTSd, and to some extent Jack. Support for MAS is also planned.
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-platforms"
></A
><B
>2.6. </B
>
Will GStreamer be available for platforms other than Unix ?
</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
Depends. Our main target is the Unix platform. That said, interest has been
expressed in porting GStreamer to other platforms and the GStreamer core
team will gladly accept patches to accomplish this.
Please refer to the
<A
HREF="http://gstreamer.net/status/?category=7"
TARGET="_top"
> platform support status table</A
>
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-gnome"
></A
><B
>2.7. </B
>What is GStreamer's relationship with the GNOME community ?</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
While GStreamer is operated as an independent project, we do have a close
relationship with the GNOME community. Many of our hackers consider
themselves also to be members of the GNOME community. There are plans to
make (some part of) GStreamer an official part of the development framework
of GNOME. This does not exclude use of GStreamer by other communities at
all, of course.
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-kde"
></A
><B
>2.8. </B
>What is GStreamer's relationship with the KDE community ?</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
The GStreamer community wants to have as good a relationship as possible
with KDE, and we hope that someday KDE decides to adopt GStreamer as their
multimedia API, just like the GNOME community plans on doing.
There have been contacts from time to time between the GStreamer community
and KDE and we do already have support for the aRTSd sound server used by KDE.
Also, some of the KDE hackers have created Qt bindings of GStreamer
and made a simple video player.
</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="qandaentry"
><DIV
CLASS="question"
><P
><A
NAME="general-my-application"
></A
><B
>2.9. </B
>
I'm considering adding GStreamer output to my application...
</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="answer"
><P
><B
> </B
>
That doesn't really make sense. GStreamer is not a sound server, so you don't
output directly to GStreamer, and it's not an intermediate API between
audio data and different kinds of audio sinks. It is a fundamental design
decision to use GStreamer in your app; there are no easy ways of somehow
'transfering' data from your app to GStreamer. Instead, your app would have
to use or implement a number of GStreamer elements, string them together, and
tell them to run. In that manner the data would all be internal to the
GStreamer pipeline.
</P
><P
> That said, it is possible to write a plugin specific to your app that can get
at the audio data.
</P
></DIV
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