Comment 116 for bug 967091

The whole point of the libvdpau patch is that it is easily reversible, and integrates trivially with the Ubuntu packaging process.

To reverse it, just change the configuration file.

To integrate with the packaging process, put the config file in the Flash package. That way, if a new Flash version is released that fixes the problem, the config file can be atomically edited to disable the workaround in libvdpau, and everything will just continue to work without users noticing.

All the other workarounds have various disadvantages:

a) Some/all simply disable VDPAU usage at all, which results in increased CPU usage, and in some cases disable VDPAU usage in all applications, not just Flash.

b) They edit files that are owned by packages other than Flash, and so it's impossible to actually package the fixes and atomically remove those fixes at the same time as a Flash update.

c) They probably aren't going to be packaged at all, thus requiring users to take complex steps to solve the problem, instead of Ubuntu performing trivial packaging steps to solve it for everyone without side-effects.

Note that Adobe has known about this bug for a long time. If they haven't fixed it yet, I seriously doubt they ever will.