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

[Rich Felker]

On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 11:15:51AM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > No, it's not. It works, has always worked, and will always work. And
> > as a leading project, MPlayer has a moral obligation to put pressure
> > on the kernel developers to ensure that it continues to work, and work
> > well. If this were my decision, I would have DROPPED alsa support from
> > MPlayer years ago since it's redundant and lower quality than OSS.
> 
> MPlayer a "leading" project?  Leading in what?

Popularity, user base, quality, bogus freshmeat statistics, legendary
fame, ... :-P

> Where are the hundreds
> of (paid) developers?

LMAO, wtf kinda question is this? Most any project with paid
developers is a joke. Certainly not leading...

> Do you realize that vlc has an order of magnitude
> more downloads than we have?

WTF, where do they get all the bandwidth? I'm not challenging your
facts, just quite surprised.

To answer your original question, several gigs of downloads per mirror
per day is a pretty good indication of being a leading project.

> If you really think that we can "put pressure on" the Linux developers,
> then you are seriously deluded...

Not deluded at all. I don't expect them to magically ditch ALSA crap
tomorrow, but I do know that preservation of features slated for
removal is contingent on software using those features and a vocal
community to stand behind them. The OSS API, being _THE_ portable
sound API for unix and the only one remotely in harmony with the
principles of unix (see The Art of Unix Programming, by everyone's
favorite gun-toting racist jerk), needs to be maintained.

As we keep OSS as the default AO module, the practical gains I expect
to see include bug fixes in the "OSS emulation" mode of ALSA, possibly
some new features here (though I'm not holding my breath), and the
silencing of the "U SUK REMOVE OSS LOL!" ALSA trolls who keep popping
up...

BTW, did you even read the OSS blog link from IRC?
http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5

Rich