[MPlayer-users] [PATCH] Getting Rage128 cards to work with xvidix again. :))

[Daniel Moreno]

Attila Kinali wrote:

> I dont like that every now and then someone is calling the developers
> gods. They arent and they dont see themselfs as gods. As it is always
> with opensource software, people try to solve their _own_ problems first
> after that, they think it _might_ be usefull for others too.

Think a little bit about it. It's not just one person or two who ends up 
thinking like this. There must be a reason, dont you think? And... 
yes... everyone tends to think he does the things right and it's someone 
else's fault. ;)

> And developing a program in your free time and then getting
> flamed because this and that doesnt work isnt that much fun.
> Especialy because you spend your free time for it.

Not exactly what I was saying.
mplayer is really great. It can play all files I normaly use faster than 
I could with windows players which used the hardware accelerations my 
card is suppoused to have. (the ads say it has hardware mpeg2 
compresion, too, so... go figure if it can really do anything in hardware)

And it is perfectly normal that things don't work. And, in adition, 
there is no obligation for any developer to fix this or that thing, of 
course.

If mplayer had some moderately nice people answering in the mailing 
lists, it'd be perfect. ;)

But... the people here cannot stand "newbies" or people who didn't spend 
his life reading all documents available in every imaginable place. 
(docs are not bad, and contain a lot of info, but they're not that good 
either. Having them splitted in man & html is confusing, structuring is 
not so good, explanations are short and not so clear and they're not so 
up to date)

It's very usual to get rude answers from this list. Or no answer at all. 
  Or just a "no". When I see a program having users mailinglists where 
people can report bugs and so, I think this means there is some sort of 
"user support".

But that's not true for mplayer. There is no REAL support of any kind. 
People's mails are refused or even laughted about without giving them a 
reason, when someone wants to help fixing something, all you ever tell 
you is that he's on his own. (it'd be nice a little bit of help from the 
developers when someone decides to start messing with such a big anb 
complex peace of code, for instance. Not a tutorial, but just some 
general ideas and tips)

The policy here is to use users. If a user can bring something to 
mplayer, he's welcome. Otherwise he'd better fuck off.

If you don't want to help users at all, don't put a mailinglist like 
this online.

The number of mails that have been really taken into account since I'm 
here is veeeeery small. (and telling me that you just cared about the 
ones that really deserved it, is being elitist/arrogant, no matter if 
you want to admit it or not)

I could keep talking some more, but maybe it's just enought for today. ;-D

> It looks like you partitaly understood it by getting your own hands
> dirty and trying to fix the problem yourself, thanks for that.

After some time I've got at least a part of the picture of the project. 
Now I know Nick is the mplayerXP guy, refusing to help here. (if you 
talk to him the same way you talk to users then I can understan him 
perfectly };) )

But, when I first came and asked I didn't know if there was someone else 
still working on vidix-ati. I had seen in the archives at least 2 more 
persons asking but found no answer at all. If I just was told Nick had 
left and there was no one taking his place and, maybe, someone ofering a 
little bit of help to get started fixing it, then I wouldn't have this 
bad idea about you now.

And that's just one of the many cases where you could have done 
something similar. I don't think those are big and dificult things. But 
can improve a lot the perception users have about you.

> The problem is that the one who wrote the whole ATI code is fokusing
> on his own project (no, i dont blame him) and as it looks like there
> is noone else who cares about the code.

A little bit late to tell me this. Now I already know it!

> it's patches.txt and maybe you should read it again. Patches belong
> to -dev-eng as a lot of developers dont read -users.

Yes. I read it fully.
And there was no solution, sorry.
I'm not going to joing this mailinglist just to please you. Sorry. If I 
had to join every mailinglist of every project I use or I find bugs then 
I'd have to spend the whole day cleaning up my inbox.
So... I could choose:

a) Post the patch in a "god forbiden" };) mailinglist
b) Post the patch in a "god loved" one, but asking people to CC me, 
since I'm not subscribed. Asking to CC me is forbiden, too. (I read it 
somewhere, I don't remember where)

So... what rule do you prefer I break? };D

>>Sorry. I'm not going to rewrite the whole message just to keep those 
>>dawn elitist arrogants happy. Take it if you want it. If not... I don't 
>>think I'm going to have much trouble reaplying the patch to newer 
>>versions of this file, since there will be no such versions, it seems.
> 
> Looks like you are a bit arrogant yourself....

Yes. I am. :)
But at least I admit it. };)
I used to think I was a developer very difficult to talk to and someone 
who always made fun of "non-elite" users... until I joined this 
mailinlist and I saw I'm a newbie in that. ;)

BTW: before someone gets unnecesarily angry: it's not that I'm angry 
with mplayer team or anything. It's just that I'm too sincere and I say 
thinks just like I see them. Sorry if I'm rude sometimes. O;)

-- 
Daniel Moreno - ComaC
Port pa'Linux del FinalBurn: http://fblinux.emuunlim.com/