[XviD-devel] win32 linking

[Radek Czyz]

Hi everyone,

Allow me please to bring your attention to this point on our TODO
list:

* decide on vfw & dshow linking policy. presently we statically link,
    however this increases the size of zips/packages where both vfw &
    dshow are included.

We statically link VfW and DShow, and we don't export xvid_encore()
and xvid_decore() in either of them.

Now, let me tell you why this is BAD: we don't allow any application
to use the already installed core directly, even if the application is
perfectly GPLed. The only way for such application to use xvidcore is
to include it in the app itself.
In particular, THE application that used to use the core directly is
ffdshow, GPLed directshow decoder filter that we like so much (at
least I do lol).

There is also another, more selfish reason - I wouldn't have to
re-link VfW everytime I recompile the core ;)

So, is there some good reason not to split the win32 built into
xvidcore.dll, xvid_vfw.dll and xvid.ax ? It would be pretty clear that
only GPLed software can link to xvidcore.dll.

Please note that if you all agree on this, I'll need some instructions
how to change msvc projects ;)) (yes, I'm that lame).

Reagrds,
Radek :)