Mercurial > mplayer.hg
annotate DOCS/users_against_developers.html @ 4980:0e6e50c02f7b
direct rendering support
| author | arpi |
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| date | Thu, 07 Mar 2002 16:57:40 +0000 |
| parents | bca05e9c0810 |
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| 2867 | 1 <HTML> |
| 2 <BODY BGCOLOR=white> | |
| 3 | |
| 4 <FONT face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2> | |
| 5 | |
| 6 <P><B><I>In medias res</I></B></P> | |
| 7 | |
| 8 <P>There are two major topic which always causes huge dispute and flame on the | |
| 9 <A HREF="http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/cgi-bin/htsearch">mplayer-users</A> | |
| 10 mailing list. Number one is of course the topic of the</P> | |
| 11 | |
| 3937 | 12 <A NAME=gcc><P><B><I>GCC 2.96 series</I></B></P> |
| 2867 | 13 |
| 3053 | 14 <P><B>Also read <A HREF="gcc-2.96-3.0.html">this</A> text !!!</B></P> |
| 15 | |
| 2867 | 16 <P>The <I>background</I> : there were/are the GCC <B>2.95</B> series. The |
| 17 best of them was 2.95.3 . Please note the style of the version numbering. | |
| 18 This is how the GCC team numbers their compilers. The 2.95 series are good. | |
| 2910 | 19 We never ever saw anything that was miscompiled because of the 2.95's faultiness.</P> |
| 2867 | 20 |
| 21 <P>The <I>action</I> : <B>RedHat</B> started to include a GCC version of <B>2.96</B> | |
| 22 with their distributions. Note the version numbering. This should be the GCC | |
| 2910 | 23 team's versioning. They patched the CVS version of GCC (something between 2.95 and 3.0) |
| 2919 | 24 They patched it very deep, and used this version in the distrib because 3.0 |
| 25 wasn't out at time, and they wanted IA64 support ASAP (business reasons). | |
| 26 Oh, and GCC 2.95 miscompiles bash on the s390 architecture (there is | |
| 27 no RedHat distribution for s390..) .</P> | |
| 28 | |
| 29 <P>The <I>facts</I> : <B>MPlayer</B>'s compile process needs the | |
| 30 <CODE>--disable-gcc-checking</CODE> to proceed upon detecting a GCC version of | |
| 31 2.96 (apparently it needs this option on <B>egcs</B> too. It's because we don't | |
| 32 test <B>MPlayer</B> on egcs. Pardon us, but we rather develop <B>MPlayer</B>). | |
| 33 If you know <B>MPlayer</B>, you should know that it has great speed. It | |
| 34 achieves this by having overoptimized MMX/SSE/3DNow/etc codes, fastmemcpy, and | |
| 35 lots of other features. <B>MPlayer</B> contained MMX/3DNow instructions in a | |
| 36 syntax that all Linux compilers accept it... except RedHat's GCC (it's more | |
| 37 standard compliant). It simply <B><I>skips</I></B> them. It doesn't give | |
| 2934 | 38 errors. It doesn't give warnings. <B>And</B>, there is Lame. With gcc 2.96, its quality check |
| 39 (<CODE>make test</CODE> after compiling) <I>doesn't even run !!!</I> | |
| 40 But hey, it compiles bash on s390 and IA64.</P> | |
| 2867 | 41 |
| 42 <P>The <I>statements</I> : most developers around the world begun having | |
| 43 bad feelings about RedHat's GCC 2.96 , and told their RedHat users to | |
| 44 compile with other compiler than 2.96 . RedHat users' disappointment slowly | |
| 2910 | 45 went into anger. What was all good |
| 2867 | 46 for, apart from giving headaches to developers, putting oil on anti-RedHat |
| 47 flame, confusing users? The answer, I do not know.</P> | |
| 48 | |
| 49 <P><I>Present age, present time</I> : RedHat says that GCC 2.96-85 and above | |
| 50 is fixed, and works properly. Note the versioning. They should have started | |
| 2910 | 51 with something like this. What about GCC 2.96.85 ? It doesn't matter now. |
| 52 I don't search, but I still see bugs with 2.96 . It doesn't matter now, | |
| 53 hopefully now <B>RedHat will forget about 2.96</B> and turn towards <B>3.0</B>. | |
| 54 Towards a deep patched 3.0... | |
| 55 </P> | |
| 2867 | 56 |
| 57 <P><I>What I don't understand</I> is why are we hated by RedHat users for | |
| 58 putting warning messages, and stay-away documents in <B>MPlayer</B> . | |
| 59 Why are we called "brain damaged", "total asshole", "childish" by | |
| 60 <B>RedHat users</B>, on our mailing list, and even on the <B>redhat-devel</B> . | |
| 61 They even considered forking <B>MPlayer</B> for themselves. RedHat users. | |
| 62 Why? It's RedHat that made the compiler, why do <U>you</U> have to hate us? | |
| 63 Are you <U>that</U> fellow RedHat worshippers? Please stop it. We don't hold | |
| 64 a grudge against users, doesn't matter how loud you advertise its contrary. | |
| 65 Please go flame Linus Torvalds, the DRI developers (oh, now I know why | |
| 66 there were laid off by VA!), the Wine, avifile. Even if we are arrogant, | |
| 67 are we not the same as the previously listed ones? Why do <B>we</B> have | |
| 68 to suffer from your unrightful wrath?</P> | |
| 69 | |
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70 <P><A HREF="mailto:willis_matthew@yahoo.com">Matt Willis</A> kindly submitted |
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71 a simple GCC-3.0.3 compiling howto, I'm copying it here:</P> |
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72 |
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73 <P> |
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74 <UL> |
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75 <LI>Download gcc. Go to the <A |
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76 HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html">http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html</A> |
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77 page. |
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78 I downloaded the following, but you don't need everything:<BR> |
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79 <CODE>gcc-g++-3.0.3.tar.gz<BR> |
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80 gcc-objc-3.0.3.tar.gz<BR> |
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81 gcc-3.0.3.tar.gz<BR> |
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82 gcc-g77-3.0.3.tar.gz<BR> |
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83 gcc-testsuite-3.0.3.tar.gz<BR> |
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84 gcc-core-3.0.3.tar.gz<BR> |
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85 gcc-java-3.0.3.tar.gz</CODE> |
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86 </LI> |
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87 |
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88 <LI>Unpack the files, make a build directory, and build<CODE><PRE> |
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89 tar xvzf gcc-*3.0.3.tar.gz |
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90 mkdir gcc-build; cd gcc-build |
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91 ../gcc-3.0.3/configure --prefix=/opt --program-suffix=-3.0.3 |
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92 make bootstrap; mkdir -p /opt; make install</PRE></CODE> |
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93 |
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94 <LI>Set your path to include /opt/bin<BR> |
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95 <CODE>export PATH=/opt/bin:${PATH}</CODE> |
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96 |
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97 <LI>Now you can build MPlayer.</LI> |
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98 </UL> |
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99 </P> |
| 2867 | 100 |
| 3937 | 101 <A NAME=binary><P><B><I>Binary distribution of MPlayer</I></B></P> |
| 2867 | 102 |
| 2919 | 103 <P>Tons of users asked us about this. For example Debian users tend to say: Oh, |
| 104 I can <CODE>apt-get install avifile</CODE>, why should I <B>compile MPlayer</B> ? | |
| 105 While this may sound reasonable, the problem lies a bit deeper than | |
| 2930 | 106 those-fuckin-MPlayer-developers-hate-gcc-2.96-and-RedHat-and-Debian.</P> |
| 107 | |
| 108 <P>Reasons: <B>Law</B></P> | |
| 109 | |
| 110 <P><B>MPlayer</B> describes the <U>sourcecode</U>. It contains several files with incompatible | |
| 111 licenses especially on the redistribution clauses. As source files, they are | |
| 112 allowed to coexist in a same project.</P> | |
| 113 | |
| 114 <P>Therefore, <U>NEITHER BINARIES NOR BINARY PACKAGES OF <B>MPlayer</B> ARE ALLOWED TO EXIST SINCE | |
| 115 SUCH OBJECTS BREAK LICENSES</U>. PEOPLE WHO DISTRIBUTE SUCH BINARY PACKAGES ARE | |
| 116 DOING ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES.</P> | |
| 117 | |
| 118 <P>So if you know somebody who maintains a binary package then forward her/him | |
| 119 this text and (ask him to) contact us. What (s)he is doing is illegal and IT IS | |
| 120 NO LONGER <B>MPlayer</B>, but <U>his/her</U> mplayer. If it breaks, it is | |
| 121 his/her fault. Don't come and cry on the <B>MPlayer</B> mailing lists, you will | |
| 122 most likely be blacklisted.</P> | |
| 123 | |
| 124 <P>Reasons: <B>Technical</B></P> | |
| 125 | |
| 126 <P> | |
| 2919 | 127 <UL> |
| 128 <LI><B>MPlayer's</B> speed (MMX, SSE, fastmemcpy, etc) optimizations are | |
| 129 determined during compilation. Thus a compiled binary contains very | |
| 130 processor-specific code. An <B>MPlayer</B> binary compiled for K6 will die | |
| 131 on Pentiums and vice versa. This has to be workarounded by runtime | |
| 132 detection, which is not an easy thing to do becase it causes massive speed | |
| 133 decrease. If you don't believe (it was explained in details 10000 times on | |
| 134 mplayer-users, search the archive), solve it and send us a patch. Someone | |
| 135 begun work on it, but disappeared since then.</LI> | |
| 136 <LI><B>MPlayer's</B> video/audio system is not plugin based. It is compiled | |
| 137 into the binary, thus making the binary depend on various libraries (the | |
| 138 GUI depends on GTK, DivX4 depends on libdivxdecore, SDL depends on libSDL, | |
| 139 every SDL release contains an unique bug that has to be workarounded during | |
| 140 compiletime, X11 output compiles differently for X3 and X4, etc). You may | |
| 141 say: yes, let's make 30 versions of downloadable binaries! We won't. We | |
| 142 will make these stuff pluggable in the future.</LI> | |
| 143 </UL> | |
| 2867 | 144 |
| 3937 | 145 <A NAME=nvidia><P><B><I>NVidia</I></B></P> |
| 3936 | 146 |
| 147 <P>We don't like nvidia's binary drives, their quality, unstability, | |
| 148 non-existant user support, always appearing new bugs. And most users behave | |
| 149 the same. We've been contacted by NVidia lately, and they said these bugs | |
| 150 don't exist, unstability is caused by bad AGP chips, and they received | |
| 151 no reports of driver bugs (the purple line, for example). So: if you have | |
| 152 problem with your NVidia, update the nvidia driver and/or buy a new | |
| 153 motherboard.</P> | |
| 154 | |
| 3937 | 155 <A NAME=kotsog><P><B><I>Joe Barr</I></B></P> |
| 3936 | 156 |
| 157 <P>He doesn't reply to our mails. His editor doesn't reply to our mails. | |
| 158 The net is full with his false statements and accusitions (he apparently | |
| 159 doesn't like for example the BSD guys, because of their different viewpoints | |
| 160 [about what?]).</P> | |
| 161 | |
| 162 <P>Now some quotes from different people about Joe Barr (just for you | |
| 163 understand why doesn't he matter at all):</P> | |
| 164 | |
| 165 <P><I>"You may all remember the LinuxWorld 2000, when he claimed that Linus T said | |
| 166 that 'FreeBSD is just a handful of programmers'. Linus said NOTHING of the | |
| 167 sort. When Joe was called on this, his reaction was to call BSD supporters | |
| 168 assholes and jerks."</I></P> | |
| 169 | |
| 170 <P><I>"He's interesting, but not good at avoiding, um... controversy. Joe Barr | |
| 171 used to be one of the regulars on Will Zachmann's Canopus forum on Compuserve, | |
| 172 years ago. He was an OS/2 advocate then (I was an OS/2 fan too). | |
| 173 He used to go over-the-top, flaming people, and I suspect he had some hard | |
| 174 times, then. He's mellowed some, judging by his columns recently. Moderately | |
| 175 subtle humor was not his mode in those earlier days, not at all."</I></P> | |
| 176 | |
| 2867 | 177 </HTML> |