[vlc-devel] VLC on OS X and LLVM

[Felix Paul Kühne]

Hello Max,

thanks for sending your patches upstream!

A few words on llvm-gcc. This compiler isn't necessary for VLC 0.9.x,  
but VLC 1.x only (the current unstable branch). VLC 1.x will introduce  
massive usage of cancelation points, something which neither GCC 4.0  
nor GCC 4.2 support correctly on the Mac. llvm-gcc does though (we  
actually don't know why, but it does...) and additionally enhances  
VLC's speed with additional optimisations. However, if you use llvm- 
gcc, your binary will run on Mac OS X 10.5 or higher only, as OS X  
10.4 doesn't include a GCC 4.2 compatible runtime (and llvm-gcc does  
only produce gcc 4.2 compatible binaries..). Therefore, VLC 1.0 will  
not run on Mac OS X 10.4 anymore (we are also using non-compatible  
APIs now).

Until VLC 1.0 is released and ported to MacPorts, it is absolutely  
fine to continue to use GCC 4.0 and the Mac OS X 10.4 SDK. The  
unstable branch doesn't include the git dependancy anymore btw.

Lastly, I'm wondering why you are including VLC in MacPorts. Is it  
just because you can put it there or are there usage scenarios being  
uncovered by our official distribution?


Best regards,

Felix


--
VideoLAN
Felix Paul Kühne
Co-Developer of VLC's Mac OS X port
http://www.videolan.org/vlc