[MPlayer-users] two cents: why dvdnav is needed (why mplayer will die from this)

[Michael A. Peters]

On Mon, 2003-03-03 at 01:08, Daniel Hauck wrote:
> I've been watching this list for a bit and I am observing why mplayer
> will die the way so many other decent projects do.

Drama should be left at the door.

> 
> Quite a few years ago, before Windows was the only way to do things and
> all the best games were in DOS, I knew this one guy who once told me,
> "...I'll never use Windows!  It's just a fancy menu system and who needs
> that?"  DOS is dead along with just about every program which was
> exclusive to it.
> 
> I posed a question about enhancing the abilities of the "gmplayer" and I
> received similar responses the gentleman I reference below.  Such
> responses as "code it yourself" "it's too trivial" and "it's not needed
> [enough]"  

I believe the response given was that the dvdnav library sucked. Not
that they were against the idea of it, but that the existing library
that they could use sucks. They don't have enough interest to fix it.

That's different than "it's not needed"

One option would be to fund the development of dvdnav for MPlayer. If
you aren't in a position to do that, sooner or later someone will do it.

I agree that I would find it very useful on a few occasions. I would
like to see it. But if the dvdnav library doesn't fit MPlayer well, and
I'm not willing to code it myself or fund it being fixed, there's not
much I can do but be patient and use Ogle in the cases where I _need_
the menu.

> 
> It's good that Linus Torvalds could see that while there are many
> "trivial" inclusions into the Linux kernel, they are present to fill
> various needs and uses.  Some of these things were even removed
> eventually but were at least given a chance to grow.  So now Linux
> supports a huge range of things such as obscure file-systems and
> executable binary formats that allow Linux to be useful not only in a
> majority sense, but in a minority one as well.

Most of them were not coded by Linus but were coded by other people and
submitted to the kernel developers. Likewise, sooner or later someone
will submit patches to MPlayer that fit the MPlayer way of doing things
and allow dvd nav menu's. It's just (from my understanding) the dvdnav
library isn't liked by them. Linux doesn't accept kernel patches that do
things in ways he doesn't like either.

> 
> "Code it yourself" isn't always an option.  That's like telling someone
> to build his own car if he needs something changed in the car he drives
> now.

Funny - when I had a VW beetle - there were things I wanted. Sometimes
the guy at the junkyard would give me pieces for free. I never
complained that what he gave me for free wasn't good enough. If I wanted
something different, I either purchased the parts or modified existing
parts myself.

You get MPlayer for free, you rarely get car and/or car parts for free -
and when you do, you don't complain about it.

>   Its not much of a stretch of the imagination to see why DVDNAV is
> needed.  Sometimes it's the only way to make some things happen. 

And it will come - sooner or later. But if the code to do it (the
existing dvdnav libraries) would compromise the MPlayer way of doing
things, then they need to be fixed first.
-- 
Michael A. Peters <mpeters at mac.com>