gstreamer/docs/faq/dependencies.xml

<sect1 id="chapter-dependencies">
  <title id="title-dependencies">Dependencies</title>
  <qandaset defaultlabel="qanda">

    <qandaentry>
      <question id="dependencies-why-so-many">
        <para>Why are there so many dependencies ?</para>
      </question>

      <answer>
        <para>
Making a full-featured media framework is a huge undertaking in itself.
By using the work done by others, we both reduce the amount of redundant work 
being done and leave ourselves free to work on the architecture itself 
instead of working on the low-level stuff.  We would be stupid not to reuse
the code others have written.
        </para>
        <para>
However, do realize that in no way you are forced to have all dependencies
installed.  None of the core developers has all of them installed.  GStreamer
has only a few obligate dependencies : GLib 2.0, liborc, and very
common stuff like glibc, a C compiler, and so on.  All of the other
dependencies are optional.
        </para>
        <para>
So, in closing, let's rephrase the question to 
<quote>Why are you giving me so many choices and such a rich environment ?
</quote>
        </para>
      </answer>
    </qandaentry>

    <qandaentry>
      <question id="dependencies-x">
        <para>Is GStreamer X independent ?</para>
      </question>

      <answer>
        <para>
Yes, we have no hard X dependency in any of our modules. There are many
GStreamer applications that run fine without any need for X, for example
streaming servers, transcoding applications, or audio applications that
don't output any video. Other applications output video to a framebuffer,
custom-made hardware sinks, or via wayland.
        </para>
      </answer>
    </qandaentry>

    <qandaentry>
      <question id="dependencies-ladspa">
        <para>What is GStreamer's position on efforts such as LADSPA ?</para>
      </question>

      <answer>
        <para>
GStreamer actively supports such efforts, and in the case of 
<ulink url="http://www.ladspa.org/"><citetitle>LADSPA</citetitle></ulink>,
we already have a wrapper plugin. This wrapper plug-in detects the LADSPA
plugins present on your system at run time.
        </para>
      </answer>
    </qandaentry>

    <qandaentry>
      <question id="dependencies-midi">
        <para>Does GStreamer support MIDI ?</para>
      </question>

      <answer>
        <para>
Not yet. The GStreamer architecture should be able to support the needs of 
MIDI applications very well however. If you are a developer interested in 
adding MIDI support to GStreamer we are very interested in getting in touch 
with you.
        </para>
        <para>
MIDI playback is provided by plugins such as wildmidi and timidity.
        </para>
      </answer>
    </qandaentry>

    <qandaentry>
      <question id="dependencies-gnome">
        <para>Does GStreamer depend on GNOME or GTK+ ?</para>
      </question>

      <answer>
        <para>
No. But many of the applications developed for GStreamer do, including some
of our sample applications. Other applications use the Qt toolkit, or are
written for Mac OS/X or Windows. We aim to provide API that is toolkit
agnostic and can be used from any toolkit, desktop environment or operating
system.
        </para>
      </answer>
    </qandaentry>
  </qandaset>
</sect1>