vlc on OS X status

[Christophe Massiot]

On Wed, Apr 04, 2001, Eugenio Jarosiewicz wrote:

> >    If you want to give a try to the DVD authentication functions,
> > uncomment the line saying "#define ACTIVATE_DANGEROUS_IOCTL" in
> > extras/DVDioctl/DVDioctl.cpp, and replace "*pi_copyright = 0;" with
> > "*pi_copyright = 1;" in plugins/dvd/dvd_ioctl.c, line 104. It will
> > probably crash your box, but if you get any useful crash information I'm
> > interested.
> 
> I'll take a look and see if I get a debugger prompt, if so I'll try to
> 2 machine debug it (as MOSX doesn't have single machine debugging of
> kernel panics yet).
> 
> >    So, what do we do ? Is it worth releasing a semi-working version
> > now, without AltiVec or CSS decryption, or shall we wait and see if we
> > can fix the current issues ?
> 
> not sure, but ...
> 
> > My opinion is that an early release might
> > bring us additional help from a few talented hackers (besides, the Linux
> > and BeOS versions have underwent important enhancements which should be
> > released as soon as possible).
> 
> I agree w/ the first opinion, and w/ the second part it looks like a
> even easier choice.  I'll stay up tonite to clean up the macosx part,
> get most common events working, and merge the darwin stuff if it
> hasn't been done (should I - or do we want to leave that there in
> case we get some a_out solution for darwin?)

I think we cannot wait for the OS X port any longer. Obviously we lack
Altivec developer(s), and only a public announcement can bring them.
Besides the whole client has undergone serious improvements/bug fixes
since 0.2.63 and we need a new release.

I suggest to start preparing for 0.2.70 release. If developers and
friends could do intensive testing and update documentation, that
would be great. Say code freeze tonight (that will leave ej0 some time
to try to debug DeCSS decryption).

The new release would include packages for all supported platforms, we
will need contributors for non-Linux non-Intel ports (I can do the
Linux/PPC RPM), including MacOS X port. But we should not advertise it
as "the first client to support MacOS X", since users will be
disappointed. Instead say "maybe the first client to support MacOS X if
you help". I can write to selected MacOS developers sites so that we
get some discrete advertisement.

-- 
Christophe Massiot.