Replacing mdk-sdk

[nydragon]

Disclaimer: I have very much no idea about what exactly mdk-sdk is doing in the codebase and just wanted a place to discuss the issue with mdk-sdk's license

mdk-sdk is unfree software, it has no LICENSE file in its repository nor source files. Additionally the developer prefers to keep it that way: wang-bin/mdk-sdk#300

Unless unfree software is permitted it causes Nix not being able to build Fladder and it not being served as a prebuilt package in nixpkgs, meaning even if it was in nixpkgs, every user would need to compile Fladder themselves.

I suppose this would also prevent Fladder from being released on f-droid.

Would it be conceivable to find a replacement for mdk-sdk?

edit: since the author does not want their project to be distributed under the GPL, Fladder is breaking the license terms. Here is a confirmation of this being the case: wang-bin/mdk-sdk#5

It's GPL incompatible and your binary will not be redistributable under GPL, [...]

[PartyDonut]

I have thought about just removing the MDK backend all together, the initial implementation was mostly for PGS support. Something the default MPV player now also supports.

That being said though, Fladder only uses the fvp package which is licensed using the BSD-3-Clause. Even if the sdk github repo has no license the package license is still valid I believe?

[natterangell]

Fwiw, the MDK/fvp backend is the only one that allows VAAPI decoding on Linux in my experience. I simply enjoy your client more than the standard jellyfin client, but MPV doesn't use vaapi in the flatpak version from what I can tell. MDK backend does. That's a major advantage in my book. BSD-3 clause is compatible, so I see no issues here.

[sh-jus]

Fwiw, the MDK/fvp backend is the only one that allows VAAPI decoding on Linux in my experience. I simply enjoy your client more than the standard jellyfin client, but MPV doesn't use vaapi in the flatpak version from what I can tell. MDK backend does. That's a major advantage in my book. BSD-3 clause is compatible, so I see no issues here.

from what I understand there was an issue with HW decoding on Linux, but has since been fixed. I think @PartyDonut has yet to pull in 2.0.1 of media_kit_video which should hopefully resolve this.

Reference: media-kit/media-kit#1325
https://pub.dev/packages/media_kit_video/changelog

[sh-jus]

Also chiming in to say that mdk actually handles slow initialisation of media at least (whereas MPV fails), specifically when hard disks need to spin up from standby. MDK gracefully waits for the drive to wake up and starts playing the media once its loaded, whereas MPV just loads infinitely and forces you to close the application entirely (this does not occur on the official jellyfin app). The worst part is that it also resets your watch progress if you'd already started watching in a prior session. It's a massive annoyance, but I very much prefer Fladder over every other client as it has really great cross platform support, and a modern feeling UX- so I'm pretty much stuck relying on MDK until the MPV implementation in Fladder can handle this better.

--
Edit: No longer an issue as of latest nightly

[PartyDonut]

See my response here.