A lot of ports use ffmpeg, and not all of them get updates with every major release of ffmpeg. API is not fully compatible, so to switch all ports from ffmpeg(4) to ffmpeg7, for example, will require a lot of effort, time and testing. With dubious results at best: it is nowhere guaranteed that ffmpeg7+ gonna work any better in any sense with ports written for ffmpeg4.
Notice that FFMpeg upstream supports older releases and issues updates for those. It will be fine to switch ffmpeg port to ffmpeg7 or 8, and then make ports which need ffmpeg4 to depend on ffmpeg4. On Sat, Oct 4, 2025 at 3:10 AM Jim DeLaHunt <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2025-10-03 06:06, Gregorio Litenstein wrote: > > What is the intended use of the different ffmpeg ports? > > Given that we currently have ffmpeg, ffmpeg-devel, ffmpeg4 (which mostly > mirrors ffmpeg), and also versions 6, 7 and 8 that install the libraries to > their own versioned folders... is the idea to be able to use them > side-by-side (with the exception of devel and ffmpeg)? > > Some ports, like opencv4 have path dependencies on libraries being in the > default old path, which por example mean that building opencv4 will pull > ffmpeg, even though there are 3 major version updates available. > > I made an issue for this (https://trac.macports.org/ticket/70729) over a > year ago and it's mostly been ignored. > > How should we proceed? I can see two ways forward: > > > 1. Mimic what the boost ports are doing, and turn ffmpeg into a stub > port that pulls in one of the others. > 2. Add +ffmpeg{version} variants to opencv4 and whichever other ports > might have a similar behavior (I don't know if there's any) > > > Could I maybe get the maintainers for these ports to weigh in? > > I second the request for the maintainers of these ports to weigh in. I > asked a similar question a few weeks ago[1], and got no answer. > > Best regards, > —Jim DeLaHunt > > [1] email thread "What is up with ffmpeg\* ?" > <https://lists.macports.org/pipermail/macports-users/2025-September/053833.html> > <https://lists.macports.org/pipermail/macports-users/2025-September/053833.html> > > -- > . --Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada > >
