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<P><B><I>In medias res</I></B></P>

<P>There are two major topic which always causes huge dispute and flame on the
<A HREF="http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/cgi-bin/htsearch">mplayer-users</A>
mailing list. Number one is of course the topic of the</P>

<P><B><I>GCC 2.96 series</I></B></P>

<P>The <I>facts</I> : <B>MPlayer</B>'s compile process needs the
<CODE>--disable-gcc-checking</CODE> to proceed upon detecting a GCC version
of 2.96 (apparently it needs this option on <B>egcs</B> too. It's because we
don't test <B>MPlayer</B> on egcs. Pardon us, but we rather develop <B>MPlayer</B>).
If you know <B>MPlayer</B>, you should know that it has great speed. It
achieves this by having overoptimized MMX/SSE/3DNow/etc codes, fastmemcpy, and
lots of other features.

<P>The <I>background</I> : there were/are the GCC <B>2.95</B> series. The
best of them was 2.95.3 . Please note the style of the version numbering.
This is how the GCC team numbers their compilers. The 2.95 series are good.
Noone ever saw anything that was miscompiled because of the 2.95's faultiness.</P>

<P>The <I>action</I> : <B>RedHat</B> started to include a GCC version of <B>2.96</B>
with their distributions. Note the version numbering. This should be the GCC
team's versioning. They patched GCC 2.95.3 . They patched it very deep.
They patched it <B>bad</B>. RedHat saw it was bad, but decided to ship it
anyways (even with his "<I>Enterprise-ready</I>" distributions). After all, more
users try it, the more bugreports they get, thus bugfixing and development
goes faster. Development? GCC 2.95 was good enough, where did they want to
develop more? Develop GCC in parallel with the GCC team ? (the GCC team was
meanwhile testing their new <B>GCC 3.0</B>)</P>

<P>The <I>result</I> : the first RedHat GCC 2.96's were so flawed, that nothing
above <I>hello_world.c</I> compiled. RedHat immediately began making
Service Packs - ups, so they immediately began patching the bugs. They
could have backed out to 2.95 if they wanted. Meanwhile major Linux programs'
like <B>DRI</B>, <B>avifile</B>, <B>Wine</B> and the <B>Linux kernel</B>
developers began wondering why do they receive these new interesting
bugreports. They obviously didn't consider it a good thing, they'd have
better things to do.</P>

<P>The <I>statements</I> : most developers around the world begun having
bad feelings about RedHat's GCC 2.96 , and told their RedHat users to
compile with other compiler than 2.96 . RedHat users' disappointment slowly
went into anger. Some guy called Bero even put up a page that describes
that GCC 2.96 is not incompatible, but 2.95 was incompatible ! If we
assume this is the case, we should greet RedHat for upgrading our GCC, and
flame all who opposes. But I wonder : why didn't they help the GCC team
<B>to fix</B> their "incompatibilities", why did they instead fork, and
did it on their own? Why couldn't they wait for GCC 3.0 ? What was all good
for, apart from giving headaches to developers, putting oil on anti-RedHat
flame, confusing users? The answer, I do not know.</P>

<P><I>Present age, present time</I> : RedHat says that GCC 2.96-85 and above
is fixed, and works properly. Note the versioning. They should have started
with something like this. What about GCC 2.95.3-85 ? It doesn't matter now.
Whether they still use kgcc for kernels, I have no information. I don't search,
but I still see bugs with 2.96 . It doesn't matter now, hopefully now <B>RedHat
will forget about 2.96</B> and turn towards <B>3.0</B>.</P>

<P><I>What I don't understand</I> is why are we hated by RedHat users for
putting warning messages, and stay-away documents in <B>MPlayer</B> .
Why are we called "brain damaged", "total asshole", "childish" by
<B>RedHat users</B>, on our mailing list, and even on the <B>redhat-devel</B> .
They even considered forking <B>MPlayer</B> for themselves. RedHat users.
Why? It's RedHat that made the compiler, why do <U>you</U> have to hate us?
Are you <U>that</U> fellow RedHat worshippers? Please stop it. We don't hold
a grudge against users, doesn't matter how loud you advertise its contrary.
Please go flame Linus Torvalds, the DRI developers (oh, now I know why
there were laid off by VA!), the Wine, avifile. Even if we are arrogant,
are we not the same as the previously listed ones? Why do <B>we</B> have
to suffer from your unrightful wrath?</P>

<P>I'm closing this topic. Think over it please. I (Gabucino) personally begun
with <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com">RedHat</A>, then used Mandrake (sorry I
don't know their URL), now I have <A
HREF="http://www.linuxfromscratch.com">LFS</A>. Never held a grudge against
RedHat or RedHat users, and I still don't. Hate is only comfortable. It
won't bring you anywhere.</P>

<P><B><I>Binary distribution of MPlayer</I></B></P>

<P>I'm too moody now for this.</P>

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author	gabucino
date	Tue, 13 Nov 2001 16:19:48 +0000
parents
children	56428bdf583e