Comment 29 for bug 939863

I agree with reagle. From a user's perspective, this is a really low move on the part of the libav/ubuntu/debian team. Regardless of the semantics, the name ffmpeg is inevitably linked to the ffmpeg.org project. The message "THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED" is highly deceptive, especially now that ffmpeg and libav have started to diverge a bit more. While it may be true that the /usr/bin/ffmpeg link in ubuntu is deprecated, it's just an outright lie to say that the ffmpeg program is deprecated. That's like saying making a link from msword to lowriter, and then stating that Microsoft Office is deprecated.

Anyway, it's been, what, 3 or 4 versions of Ubuntu since this switch was made? Why not just deprecate it already? Or is there some fear that then users will start installing the real ffmpeg (e.g. from https://launchpad.net/~jon-severinsson/+archive/ffmpeg), and using that instead?