[vlc-devel] Win32 builds

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le Wednesday 23 January 2008 22:26:35 Andre Weber, vous avez écrit :
> just reading your mail -- I think we should keep the default distribution
> of videolan small - only containing the required modules - but the build
> process should build all module, which could be compiled at this time - and
> offer them as "Addon packs" / "Additional downloads" - like my Ambilight - 
> Would be a nice feature in the gui -- showing the user a list of available
> addons for his Videolan Version and OS - "Download and Install" with one
> click... inside the gui... (just an idea - before jb kills me)

You don't seem to realize we don't have a choice. Even if the official Windows 
and Mac builds build the entire immense stack, the other platforms will not 
because they take care of building VLC themselves.

It is a *fact* that Linux and BSD distros don't build *any* of the Python, 
Java or .Net bindings. They also "fail" to build certain not so commonly used 
plugins, when these add new external dependencies.
When we build VLC for all platforms, we can choose to operate in a fully 
centralized way, but hell will freeze before that happens.

And even for Windows and Mac, we have seen the failures of the big centralized 
build system. It becomes more and more difficult and slow for people to 
compile VLC, and the "official builders" are becoming more and more 
fragile... Remember the Debian mingw32 ugprade who brought havoc to the 
Windows builds, and the failure to produce security updates for MacOS 10.3.9. 
The more centralized, the more stuff needs to be kept in perfect sync and the 
bigger the chance of breaking down. We should be struggling to make the build 
system lighter, not heavier.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc-devel/attachments/20080123/8a288fd7/attachment.sig>