Re: GStreamer xwidget

[Po Lu]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>   > As GStreamer doesn't load plugins by yourself, you do so by making sure
>   > to only pass good plugin names to the element factory.

> We're starting to close in on the crucial point.

> Can you show me the code Emacs would use to control which plug-ins are
> permitted?  In other words, how does a program "pass plug-in names"
> to the element factory?

In the function call to `gst_element_factory_make'.  We would have to
verify that the first argument, a C string, names a plugin included in
`gst-plugins-base' or `gst-plugins-good'.

> Does the program need to pass the list of good plug-in names?

No, it only has to refrain from passing a string that names a plugin
that is not free software to `gst_element_factory_make'.

> I'm trying to do a kind of security analysis of this.  Does passing
> the right list of plug-in names depend on the cooperation of other
> projects?

The GStreamer developers, who overlap greatly with other Freedesktop.org
projects.

> If so, which ones, and how would Emacs interact with them?  I want to
> make sure we are not volunerable to misbehavior on their part.

We would have to make sure that, when we decide to use a plugin in
Emacs, that it is part of `gst-plugins-base' or `gst-plugins-good'.

> If we'd need to trust some people, who are they, and what concretely
> would we need to trust them to do?

We would have to trust them to place only free plugins in
`gst-plugins-good' and `gst-plugins-base', and to document the plugins
correctly.

Thanks.