[MPlayer-G2-dev] the awakening, license changes and so on...

[Arpi]

Hi,

> Is it just me or is there something burning ?

hmm, you seems to be very cold to me nowdays...
so is this burning ice or what? :)

> On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 03:41:16PM +0200, Arpi wrote:
> > I'LL BE BACK:
> > Some of you already know from irc, i'm planning to continue work
> > ok mplayer g2 core from september. I left g2 because of the license
> > conflict: i don't like gpl, especially for the g2 core, and no, i
> > did not change my option, but the license :)
> 
> It would be great to have you back, but spelling out conditions at the
> beginning isnt IMHO the right thing. It sounds like we could not do
> anything w/o, so please be carefull on how you write these things.

g2 is/was my project, i started it from scratch, and later extended
by code from g1. so i wonder why should i be very carefull when i came
back? maybe i should, if you all do a great work on it since i leave,
making it a good application, but the truth is that nobody touched the
code since that... this was my main purpose to came back, to finish
what i started.

> BTW: did you chose this time by purpose ? Knowing that Rich is currently
> away ?
> I know that when he comes back and reads these mails that the whole
> situation will explode. (you both like flaming too much)

i didnt know that he is away, remember i did not read the mailing lists.
anyway i dont really care of rich's flames^Kopinion...

> > NEW LICENSE:
> > So i plan to change g2 core license to lgpl.
> > So no dual licensing, no commercial licensing and such mess.
> > LGPL should be better for a (set of) library(es) anyway, and
> > it let commercial users to link it with their optionally
> > closedsource UIs, drivers etc.
> > We won't get money directly (opposed to original dual licensing plan),
> > but as iive said, nobody wants money, so it should not be problem. :)
> > Although it can be expected that some commercial users (think of
> > settopbox, divx player etc makers) will sponsor some of you to do
> > custom development for them. I'm personally not interested much in
> > these, but i was asked by several companies in the past year
> > (including some quite big ones), so i know there is such interest.
> 
> I think everyone who works on a videoplayer for some while knows that
> there is a huge comercial interest in having a cheap to use codebase.
> The thing that matters here is on how we handle this. What do we want to
> achive ? Yes, world domination is one plan, but we should think more
> about tomorrow. Currently i see one big problem: the lack of manpower.
> Somebody needs to write the code, and the amount of people working
> actively on MPlayer was shrinking for months. The high time of 0.50
> where even the devels could barely keep up with the evolution of MPlayer
> are long over. So we first should think about why and how the
> development slowed down before we can think about comercial usage of our
> code.
> Then what do you want to achive with comercial use of MPlayer ?
> Just getting sponsoring (ie money, hardware, being paid for working on
> the code etc) ? Getting "professional" programmers working on MPlayer ?
> The fame of being the comercialy most used player ?
> I'm pretty sure that you are not after the money or after hardware.
> I also dont think that you are after the fame. And getting
> "professional" programmers working on OSS isnt always something
> you want. So what is it ?

- getting g2 api accepted as 'industial standard for linux/unix video/media'
  something like oms, and later gstreamer and openquicktime wanted to
  reach, with no much success.
  we have to make it available for commercial users, otherwise they wont
  spend their time developing/porting their codecs, demuxers etc for it.
- getting some money/hw/sponsorship to developers who need it to be able
  to work on the code fulltime or at least more time.

<technical crap>
to be answered later, now flame only :)

> > So, as you already could see, i don't count with Iive's and Rich's work
> > on vo and vf layers. If they have complete, implemented solutions,
> > i'll check, but i wont wait for them forever and keep reading the
> > utopistic drafts with mixing multiple video streams etc.
> > I guess they should work on g3 instead :)
> 
> But you should count on their work. They are one of the very few people
> who know a lot about video coding and work on OSS.

i know. but they are also the reasons why g2 is still not finished.
i can't agree any more with them making g2 api capable of every
extreme cases including mixing from multiple video sources, backward
playback and so on. i think it maybe a goal for g3, but not for g2,
or g2 will end up vaporware.

> > The goal for g2 is still the same: make it usable as soon as possible.
> > In short: no new from-scratch overcomplicated apis, and try to keep
> > some backward compatibility with g1, so plugins can be ported easily.
> > Think g2 is a cleaned up, extended g1, and not a new player/editor with
> > ultimate features.
> 
> IMHO there need to be a big rewirte, not just a clean up. A clean up can

g2 is between rewrite and cleanup. some parts rewritten, some cleaned up.

> Then g1's code has a lot of design limitations, i dont think you can get
> around them w/o completely redesigning and reimplementing from scratch.

sure. but i can get around the most important limitations.

> IMHO best would be to start with Rich's idea of a small proper designed
> core that offers the basic functionality and then extend it until you
> have what you needed and build everything else around it. 

i dont remember rich going for small simple core... he had overcomplicated
(hard/impossible to implement) vf ideas.

> Ie exactly like g1 started, just with a proper design behind
> it and with the lessons learned.

g1 was born as a 1,5 hours hack around libmpeg3.
later replaced by dvdshow and then libmpeg2, and after some code
coped from xmps/avifile to support divx. the whole shit was a bigugly
hack. this is what i try to avoid in g2.

also i want to avoid the story of oms. it was designed for over 2 years,
then they ended up so overcomplicated design than nobody wanted to
actually implement, or they implemente dit so buggy that it was unusable.
then the project died, and the authors restart from scratch, called xine...

> What do you want to achive?
working, usable g2

> How do you want to do it ?
quickly

> Especialy the first one needs IMHO a clear answer.
> Please also note that neither iive, Alex nor Diego have replied to your mail
so what are the conclusions? they refuse to support me? ok...


A'rpi / MPlayer, Astral & ESP-team

--
MPlayer's new image: happiness & peace & cosmetics & vmiklos