[sldev] [VWR] openAL wind generator WIP

[Callum Lerwick]

On Tue, 2008-01-15 at 04:47 -0800, Dzonatas wrote: 
> Callum Lerwick wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-01-14 at 08:29 -0800, Dzonatas wrote:
> >   
> >> There is no up-to-date how-to on the best way to get these all to work 
> >> nicely. One app wants steal the sound and another app hangs or crashes. 
> >> It doesn't all work out of the box.
> >>     
> >
> > This is not a "Second Life" problem. It is the distribution's problem to
> > have OpenAL working. If it doesn't work, file bugs with your
> > distribution.
> >   
> OpenAL is distributed with SecondLife. There is no other reason for 
> OpenAL to exist on my system.
> 
> "
> Dear Distributor,
> 
> SecondLife currently includes OpenAL. As much as we have tried so far, 
> OpenAL doesn't want to work fully. The developers of SecondLife say it 
> is your problem to get it working. I know they choose to include OpenAL, 
> but they insist it is your problem to make sure SecondLife and OpenAL 
> works correctly on your distribution.  blah blah blah"
> "
> 
> Um... I don't think that is going to fly.

This is how Open Source is supposed to work. If something is not
working, you start a dialog with developers and get it fixed. You are
not a passive consumer of product. You are part of the process.

We already expect OpenGL to be in place and working. Why is OpenAL any
different?

> If you look at this from a business stance, you want people hearing 
> whats going on in sound. We want to find a solution. People want to do 
> business. There are other SecondLife developers here. The resources are 
> here.

We're talking Linux here. From a "business stance" Windows is the only
platform that matters. (Note, recent OSX has OpenAL installed and
working out of the box. So no problem there.) And Windows will continue
to use fmod in the short term. Hopefully in the long term, fmod will be
dragged out into the street and shot, and Creative Labs already has
windows taken care of: (Scroll to the bottom, Application Deployment)

http://www.openal.org/windows_enumeration.html

> Callum, we aren't even sure if you even tested SecondLife concurrently 
> with all these other applications when you made the patch. Perhaps, 
> there is a little magic being believed it would work.

Well thank you for making presumptions about what I'm doing.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=420991
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=343911

Okay I wasn't the first to catch these, I don't run Rawhide because I
have enough problem with my babies being eaten as it is, but I made damn
sure the fixes worked right, and I caught some problems with them before
they went out.

Remember, I am a Fedora maintainer. If OpenAL isn't Just Working out of
the box in Fedora, I will personally see to it that it gets fixed.

> We tested it. This is the report. I understand that you don't want it to 
> be your problem. Perhaps, it works fine for you.  Maybe you can share 
> your setup on how you got it working smoothly.

Report of what? You haven't said what distribution is not working here.

If there is a problem here, it needs to be pushed to the distribution's
bug tracker, not hacked around by outside projects. If your distribution
of choice is not interested in having OpenAL fully functional out of the
box, then your distribution is rubbish.

(I've been watching way too much Top Gear lately... :)

> In the meantime, when people ask me for a recommendation on what the 
> best system is to run SecondLife. I'll say Windows -- cause I know it 
> works. I've tested it out of the box. I can assure it. It can get 
> business done.

I'm not in sales. I am not a salesman. I am not interested in sales or
evangelization. The best system will sell itself. And hacks and kludges
and workarounds and "how to" documents are not the path to being the
best. It should Just Work.

You're derailing the thread with bikeshedding, and Fedora for one,
already finished building our bikeshed a year ago. Feel free to copy
ours. :)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/sldev/attachments/20080115/5776790e/attachment.pgp