https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39402
--- Comment #9 from Andrew Eikum aeikum@codeweavers.com --- (In reply to Bruno Jesus from comment #8)
(In reply to Andrew Eikum from comment #7)
(In reply to fjfrackiewicz from comment #6)
If Wine is to use ffmpeg as a dependency, will it be ffmpeg 3.1.1 or 2.8.7?
Because of ffmpeg's unstable API, this isn't likely to be accepted into Wine, unfortunately. However, the part of the API we use hasn't changed between 2.8 and 3.1, so it should work with either with no changes.
Are there any other options? What is the problem of using it until it breaks (if it ever breaks)? Someone will open a bug and it will be fixed.
It was discussed on wine-devel and IRC:
https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2015-August/108820.html
https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-patches/2015-September/142293.html
Personally I agree with you, but the consensus is otherwise, so it's out of tree for now.