GStreamer plugins: "ugly" and "bad"

Question

Why are gstreamer plugins labeled as "bad" and "ugly"?

Answer 1

From https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/additional/splitup.html

gst-plugins-base
a small and fixed set of plug-ins, covering a wide range of possible types of elements; these are continuously kept up-to-date with any core changes during the development series.

• We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins
• People writing elements should base their code on these elements
• These elements come with examples, documentation, and regression tests

gst-plugins-good
a set of plug-ins that we consider to have good quality code, correct functionality, our preferred license (LGPL for the plug-in code, LGPL or LGPL-compatible for the supporting library).

• We believe distributors can safely ship these plug-ins
• People writing elements should base their code on these elements

gst-plugins-ugly
a set of plug-ins that have good quality and correct functionality, but distributing them might pose problems. The license on either the plug-ins or the supporting libraries might not be how we'd like. The code might be widely known to present patent problems.

• Distributors should check if they want/can ship these plug-ins
• People writing elements should base their code on these elements

gst-plugins-bad
a set of plug-ins that aren't up to par compared to the rest. They might be close to being good quality, but they're missing something - be it a good code review, some documentation, a set of tests, a real live maintainer, or some actual wide use. If the blanks are filled in they might be upgraded to become part of either gst-plugins-good or gst-plugins-ugly, depending on the other factors.

• If the plug-ins break, you can't complain - instead, you can fix the problem and send us a patch, or bribe someone into fixing them for you
• New contributors can start here for things to work on