[vlc-devel] Q: handling an experimental version

[Riccardo Bernardini]

Dear all,
here at the University of Udine we are working on an experimental  
overlay multicast  protocol for streaming data.  Let me skip all the  
motivations, why it is different from anything else and why it is so  
cool.  Just take my word for it and let me go to the question. :-)

The first pre-release of our software is almost ready and we would  
like to interface it with VLC.  We would do this both for testing our  
software (and this would not be a problem), but also we would like to  
make available our "experimental" version, so to have some feedback  
about it.  Since we do not want to pollute the VLC source with our  
experimental code, I would like to ask you suggestions on how to  
handle this "experimental branch."  We would like, if possible, to  
keep it synchronized with the main development branch.

I know that VLC has modules, but I do not think that our code could be  
included by adding a new module.   Let me briefly explain the changes  
we plan to apply

   * The first change will be in the SDP parsing part.  SDP will be  
adapted to our protocol by defining a new transport protocol (we are  
working to have this published by IETF).  Say that instead of having  
"RTP/AVP" on the media (m=) line you have something like  
"RTP/AVP/Coolest-protocol-ever" :-).

   * The SDP parser will recognize the new transport protocol and will  
call a suitable function to open the connection.

   * The called function will do a lot of works internally and it will  
return an integer value that represents an UDP socket.

Maybe the part that opens the connection and returns an UDP socket  
could be coded as a module, but I am afraid that the new transport  
protocol could not be added to the SDP parser with an additional  
module and that we will need to modify directly the SDP module.  Maybe  
a second, alternative SDP module?  I do not know...

Any suggestions?

Thank you

Riccardo

PS: By the way, if you want to "absorb" our code in the main branch,  
we have no objection to it; however, I think that it would be better  
to wait for a more stable version of our software.



-- 
Riccardo Bernardini
DIEGM -- University of Udine
via delle Scienze 208
33100 Udine
Tel: +39-0432-55-8271
Fax: +39-0432-55-8251

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