[vorbis] Compiler Cert Suggestions

Ryan Mack rmack at mackman.net
Tue Aug 28 18:57:06 PDT 2001



Somewhere on the download page you should make *very* clear that audio
encoders in general are *very* compiler dependent.  To that end, when you
approach 1.0 release, you should enumerate known working and broken
compilers (including which optimization flags are recommended for each).

These checks should probably also be included in the .spec file to prevent
people from rpm --rebuilding without checking if they have a broken
compiler.

I would also recommend you make an effort to supply for download binaries
for more platforms such that only developers will need to ever build it
from source.  The last thing a promising audio format needs is the
Internet to be flooded with awful sounding encoded files because people
didn't know their compiler was broken.

A few distributions (RH 7.1 included) are a release or two behind, leaving
most users to download the new releases from your site.

As for the maintainers, I wouldn't be too concerned until 1.0 comes out,
but when it does you should probably include some strict encoder tests in
the distribution.  I wouldn't rely on maintainers to notice any subtle
quality issues resulting from a flaky compiler.

You could also provide a distribution-targeted release which included a
few small public domain music samples (or even noise patterns) and a
correctly encoded version for byte-wise comparison.

-Ryan

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