[Ffmpeg-devel] [PATCH] Staticising mpeg12data header

[Michel Bardiaux]

Rich Felker wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 06:16:56PM +0200, Michel Bardiaux wrote:
>> I tend to agree with Rich here. When visibility of exported symbols was 
>> only an issue on MS-W platforms, the usual attitude in th 'nix world 
>> was: "That's a very bad dynamic linkage model! Off with his head! The 
>> Unix model, with a single symbol space and every symbol visible 
>> everywhere, is MUCH simpler hence MUCH better".
>>
>> Now gcc et al. have introduced visibility control in gcc and ld, and all 
>> of a sudden it becomes a good idea!
> 
> Indeed, this is exactly what I meant. Damn hypocrites. They criticize
> windows ideas as stupid until Linux has them too, then go praising the
> same stupid ideas.
> 
> And yes in this case it's not _quite_ the same because on Linux it's
> optional, but the principle is still quite analogous.
> 
>> It's a common enough syndrome. When there was no direct TLS support in 
>> Linux pthreads, writing about it only got you 'That would be very bad 
>> for performance, because of TLB flushing!' (or the ozone layer, or 
>> whatever). Now 2.6 and NPTL *have* direct TLS support with assist from 
>> gcc, and wow, now TLS is cool!
> 
> I hate TLS too. 

I dont want to be misunderstood. I agree with your criticism of the 
inconsistent attitudes. But IMHO TLS is very important; on visibility I 
dont have strong opinions, I take things as they are because I dont have 
much choice.

> Yet another GCC extension designed to lock people into
> GCC. GNU software is no different than MS in this regard. They keep
> adding more and more extensions that no one ever really needed in the
> first place, but then because people get used to them and poorly
> written software depends on them, everyone feels like they "need" GNU
> extensions just like they "need" the latest MS Word.
> 
> It's all about inventing complexity for the sake of monopoly, and a
> monopoly ruled by a piece of free software is only marginally better
> than one ruled by proprietary software. Real software freedom comes
> only through plurality -- respect for _simple_ standards and
> interoperability. Overly complex standards (which all standards have
> the thread of becoming) only serve to reinforce monopolies by making
> the standard so difficult to implement that no one but the historical
> implementations has a chance to finish it before the standard enters
> its next phase of exponential growth.

Very pertinent. Echoes Raymond's book "Cathedral and bazaar" where he 
stated quite candidly that open software development is mostly driven by 
egomania.

> 
> Rich
> 


-- 
Michel Bardiaux
R&D Director
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