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

[Diego Biurrun]

On Wed, May 02, 2007 at 10:52:21PM -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> 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...

LMAO, WTF kinda answer is this?

I'm afraid you're serious though and willing to dismiss projects with
paid devs outright.  Sometimes I can just shake my head at your binary
views.

> > 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.

They are being hosted/sponsored by free.fr, the largest ISP in France.

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

Compare with VLC.

Downloads are nothing more than numbers.  What you want and need are
(active) developers and mindshare.  We are a handful of people hacking
away in their spare time without any direction or organization.

Other projects have hundreds (even thousands) of developers, artwork
people, translators, web monkeys and even marketing teams ...

> > 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

I didn't notice it on IRC.

What can I say?  Typical proprietary sw whining: "Our product was
technically soooo superior and the shortcomings were just there because
nobody was paying me to fix them and the zealots rejected my great piece
of software, my beloved baby, only because it was not GeePeeEll.  If
only they had used my stuff from the beginning, they would have
exchanged their freedom for a better API.  What an excellent deal they
would have made, look at the mess they're in right now ..."

Serves him right.  He chose to sink his ship himself by making it
proprietary.  It's not like he didn't have alternative options.

Diego