Libav is an abandoned[5] free software project, forked from FFmpeg in 2011, that contains libraries and programs for handling multimedia data.

[7][8][9] The event was related to an issue in project management and different goals: FFmpeg supporters wanted to keep development velocity in favour of more features, while Libav supporters and developers wanted to improve the state of the code and take the time to design better APIs.

Secondly, Mateusz "j00ru" Jurczyk, a security-oriented developer at Google, argued that all issues he found in FFmpeg were fixed in a timely manner, while Libav was still affected by various bugs.

To further complicate matters, Libav chose a name that was used by FFmpeg to refer to its libraries (libavcodec, libavformat, etc.).

For example, the libav-user mailing list, for questions and discussions about using the FFmpeg libraries, is unrelated to the Libav project.

The Libav logo uses a zigzag pattern that references how MPEG video codecs handle entropy encoding.

Following the fork, in 2011 one of the Libav developers Måns Rullgård claimed copyright over the logo and requested FFmpeg cease and desist from using it.

Numerous free and open-source implementations of existing algorithms for the (usually lossy) compression and decompression of audio or video data, called codecs, are available.