[sldev] Just askin': How are we doing?

Joshua Bell josh at lindenlab.com
Wed Jun 27 09:51:02 PDT 2007


Alissa's issues boil down to one root cause: the Linden-provided viewer 
binary releases are not done using the same set of libraries and tools 
as are available in the source drop. This manifests in at least two ways:
(1) The process of providing the source is a multi-step export process 
which is by necessity lossy. It is also error prone - because the list 
of files to export is explicit, a file can be missed.
(2) The libraries and scripts used for building are different, thus 
producing different binaries.

This is a situation we'd like to correct, but it will take time - for 
example, until the OpenJPEG performance is comparable with the KDU 
library we've licensed, I don't see us switching. And switching from 
"open source drops are a stripped subset of the internal build 
environment" to "internal builds are a superset of patches layered over 
the open code base" is also something we'd like to do, but will take 
time and resources. (Have I mentioned that we're hiring?)

Alissa Sabre wrote:
> The open source community has experienced some cases that, when a new
> release of offical binary came out, and the corresponding source
> tarballs were distributed just after it, the source didn't produce the
> same viewer as the binary releases.  Sometimes, few files were missing
> from the source tarballs.  Sometimes build scripts were broken.  And
> (I believe it is just once, but) on 1.4.0.1, the version number
> embedded in the source file was different from the binary release,
> that is, the distributed C++ source files was not exactly those for
> the binary release.
>   
This is a manifestation of #1. We've shifted responsibility for 
producing the source code drops from Rob to my release team, so when 
problems are reported we should have more ability to regenerate the 
tarballs. I try and monitor this list, so please scream and shout. We 
should have 1.17.2.0 code up shortly (I think it was bundled up last 
night but links weren't sent around, I'm checking on this)

> Moreover, when I compare the binary from my own build and the official
> binary release, I heve never seen they are same.  On Windows, I'm
> using VS2005, and the different binary is just as expected.  On Linux,
> I'm not sure but it may be some minor differences between
> distribution.  (I'm running Fedora, BTW.)  What I'm not confortable is
> that on MacOS, my own binary and official binary don't match.  I don't
> understand why they can different, because I believe LL and I are
> using exactly the same OS and same development tools...
>   
This is a manifestation of #2. At the very least, the open source-based 
releases use the OpenJPEG library vs. the KDU library for JPEG2000 
decoding. There are probably a few other differences - Rob can probably 
provide a full list. Hopefully this is all in the Wiki - if not, scream 
at us!




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