[MPlayer-users] firewalls needed :)

[Roger Fujii]

daniel carter <hedonist at win.co.nz> wrote:
> D J Hawkey Jr wrote:
> > You took the literal, and ignored the meaning. I meant no offense. I
> > only meant that here - at least in my part of the country - we tend to
> > treat others with respect.
> What kind of respect is it to say.  "Well that might be the way you do things
> in your country, but here we do it this way, and our way is the right way,
> yours is wrong, and you need to change and do it our way"?

That wasn't what he said.  What he said was, "maybe the way you are talking
isn't insulting in your culture, but in ours, the english words you are using is
very rude/insulting/patronizing".  And given that this IS in english, you may
want to be a little sensitive about that. 
 
> No it is a bonus cause they're a bunch of sweet guys.  Someone doing something
> on their own time, and giving it away for free, is free to do it any way they
> want.  They don't owe anyone a complete package.

I don't see the problem in *any* other open-source projects.  What makes you
guys so special?
 
> > Usually the reply is an insult, followed by an answer. I haven't seen any
> > reply "teach" anything constructive.
> I haven't seen any replies start with an insult.  But i've only been on the
> list a few weeks.

insult isn't the right word here.  How about being RUDE?
 
> > > Microsofts developers aren't visibly courteous, helpful or modest.  The
> > > just develop code.
> > How do you know? Do you work with them? Play cards with them? If any of
> > them publish OSS, I'll bet they're polite to their users.
> Some of them are bound to be polite courteous card players, but not to the
> users.  Apart from some small experiement MS recently did the developers never
> interact with the users (the experiement was with WinCE i think, so even then,
> they'd be interacting with other developers, not end users).  When you have
> trouble installing Win98, and you call up MS support, do they put you through
> to one of the core developers?  No, the developers would probably get pissed
> off pretty quick if they were interrupted all the time with installation
> problems.  There are call center guys to handle the calls, and document
> writers to write the documentation....

I don't know of ANY commercial company where *IF* the dev people answer
a tech call, they give a RUDE answer to the caller.   If you are going to be
rude, don't answer the call.  
 
> > Ah, I see. "We're just a bunch of autistic coders, so code we will. We
> > can't stand people, let alone society. Human relationships be damned".
> > I seriously doubt that's the image the developers want to broadcast.
> > Is that the image you want to broadcast about yourself to the world?
> No, but if i get a kick out of writing code, it doesn't mean i want to be
> answering the questions all the time, just because people are too lazy to read
> docs.  Just cause i don't want to spoon feed lazy people doesn't imply i am
> some sort of autistic recluse.

How hard is the concept, "if you can't be nice, don't answer" be?  
 
> >  Why would anyone insult his client or customer?
> Clients and customers?  Where are the customers?

in this case, the people who are using your code.
 
> > So, YOU tell ME why YOU couldn't respond to me without persecutorial
> > bend?
> Well to be honest, i'm sick of hearing in the news lately about all the
> countries america has had a hand in fucking up and your response sounded to me
> like it came from yet another american who believed their culture was superior
> and that the rest of the world had better submit and do it their way or else.
> "westernize" - ironic terminology given it's origin :p  Not that it's got much
> to do with americans in general, the public genereally has no clue as to what
> was going on, i would hope most of my american friends would be outraged if
> they knew what their government was up to.

well, at this this explains your responses.  You can't control your prejudices
to not color what other people are saying.


 
> Hmm, this is classic, all your problems are answered in the documentation :)

I didn't realize the solution for a poorly organized docs are in the docs.
Care to point me to it?
 
> > The problem is a) the docs aren't clear.
> I that case "they can paste the part they don't understand, and ask for clarification on
> the list."

You want me to paste the entire document?  Mplayer is a movie player.  All *most*
people
would want to do with it is play a movie.  So, the simple question is "what do I need
to do to compile a reasonable player?".  Part of the problem is that configure in
this
project has counter-intuitive defaults.
 
> > b) It's organized extremely poorly
> I like the table of contents, makes it quick to jump to the section i am configuring

That's if you already know WHAT to configure. 
 
> > c) requires an ENORMOUS amount of technical knowledge just to understand the
> > terminology.  It is not unreasonable, given the state things are in, that
> > simple questions that are not obvious in the docs
> Yup, not unreasonable, and if they are not documented already they tend to get answered

yeah... usually with an RTFM...
 
> > (like settting up GUI - why isn't there a configuration section?) will come up.
> Did you read the manual?
> 
> http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/#1.4

Oh, yeah.. It makes SOOOOOO much sense to read under "INTRODUCTION: What about the
GUI?"
for configuration information.  
 
> > I know of *NO* other program that requires me to read the ENTIRE doc just to run configure.
> 
> Are you sure?  It lists it here
> 
> [dantheperson at danski main]$ ./configure --help

try the non-cvs version - the thing that is considered "stable".  And before
you say "use the cvs version", if the old version is bad, REMOVE it, because
*most* people will not grab the current CVS version because it has a tendency
to be unstable. 


> > The problem is a) the docs aren't clear.
> Where? Send patch.
> 
> > b) It's organized extremely poorly
> Where? Matter of taste.. Send patch.

I'm not about to spend time on a project whose developers are so rude -
The attitudes I've seen doesn't make me want to contribute to this project. 

> > c) requires an ENORMOUS amount of technical knowledge just to understand the
> a, it's worth it

yeah, like having a dictionary that isn't alphabetized.

> b, you don't really have to understand, just follow "Installation" section
> 
> > (like settting up GUI - why isn't there a configuration section?)
> A what? Where? How? Why?

Look in your FM, under "Installation".  It says:

Then build MPlayer:
./configure
make
make install


Thus, following your FM, you will get NO GUI.  

> > requires me to read the ENTIRE doc just to run configure.
> You know: it's an agreement between other developers and me. Users can't
> install unless they RTFM, so my efforts aren't in vain ;)

Glad you feel this way...   Time to start looking at xmps.

-r
-- 
Roger Fujii <rmf at lookhere.com>
Underemployed, and trying to keep it that way....