[vlc-devel] Questions to the community: AribaMC - Overlay-based video streaming plugin for VLC

[Christoph Mayer]

Hi,

>> -is it of interest to VLC that such a streaming plugin exists on an
>> experimental basis? If we develop it further, we want to be sure that
>> the VLC community does support this in general.
>
> I can interpret this question in different ways, which could radically change
> the answer. It depends what the unstated alternative(s) are, and whose
> interest is in question.

Let me rephrase: do you think such a plugin makes sense at all from a 
functional view and is the community fine with this from a project 
perspective that we develop such a plugin somehow parallel to VLC.

>> -are you ok if we further promote this plugin? Or does it go against the
>> agenda of the VLC community to have such experimental plugins that are
>> lossely coupled with VLC?
>
> 1/ Yes, so long as you don't claim it's made by the VideoLAN project.
> 2/ Not at all, as far as I know.
>
>> -is it possible that on the VLC site there is some link back to the
>> AribaMC website (http://www.ariba-underlay.org/wiki/Documentation/VLC),
>> maybe in the developers section?
>
> A few issues should be sorted first.
>
> Your 'plugin' really should be a plugin (or several plugins) that can be
> dropped into an existing VLC. Currently, you're providing a fully recompiled
> VLC which is inadequate. I know it's easier said than done.

the anonymous svn access contains the complete VLC source with our 
additional streaming files. The precompiled packages available on the 
website are really _only_ libraries that can be used with an existing 
normal VLC installation via VLC's --plugin-path parameter. We do not 
provide a recompiled VLC version. We can additionally provide a package 
of the AribaMC source files only, additionally to the svn access.

> The documentation should be updated to VLC 1.1.
>
> You should probably separate development instructions, usage guide and theory
> in separate pages.

We will work on this, thanks.

> But I can't promise anything because I am not really responsible for the
> official VLC website.
>
>> -we are planning to write an article for a german computer magazine to
>> describe the general way to write VLC streaming plugins and our AribaMC
>> work in special. Is there some interest from a german-speaking VLC
>> developer to cooperate on this? We want to make sure that the contents
>> in such an article are in-line with the VLC community and correct from
>> the VLC developer's view.
>
> My command of German is pretty bad so I can't help much.

Thanks for your response!

Regards,
Christoph