[MPlayer-dev-eng] [patch] prefer ALSA over OSS

[Uoti Urpala]

On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 18:49 -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 11:29:38PM +0300, Uoti Urpala wrote:
> > On Sat, 2007-04-28 at 22:16 +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > On Sat, Apr 28, 2007 at 03:57:03PM -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> > > > MPlayer is a *nix application, not a Linux application, and thus
> > > > should prefer and endorse the standardized api, not the nasty
> > > > Linux-specific one.
> > > 
> > > OSS is one API and ALSA is another API.
> > > Which standard are you referring to?
> > 
> > Don't waste too much time arguing with Rich. His opinions on matters
> > such as this can be quite out of touch with reality.
> 
> #*&$ off, Uoti. I'm sick of ad hominem attacks.

First note that what I said was not an ad hominem argument. "Rich
Felker's arguments about ALSA are false because he is a kook" would be
an ad hominem argument (attacking the person making an argument to
discredit the argument). "You shouldn't waste your time arguing about
ALSA with Rich Felker because he is a kook" is not an ad hominem
argument.

The broadest colloquial meaning of "ad hominem", meaning any mention of
a negative claim about a person (even if true and relevant), does apply.
I do however maintain that 1) what I said was true, and 2) bringing it
up was relevant: it was something a new poster to the list should know
in that situation. I did not phrase it in polite terms, but given your
past behavior towards myself and others I think that can be excused.

I think characterizing you as a kook as in the examples above is
reasonable. The definition at
http://www.catb.org/esr/jargon/html/K/kook.html
lists paranoia and grandiosity as the trademarks. For the first we have
the evil gnome supporters trying to introduce bloat everywhere. For the
second there are various groups of people such as the Linux kernel
developers and Linux distro builders who are all total idiots and create
broken crap because they fail to understand simple facts which are
completely obvious to you. You do sometimes post technically accurate
information, but often your kook characteristics also appear in what
should be a technical discussion.