[vorbis] Why is Vorbis development slow?

[Alejandro G. Belluscio]

Hello engdev,

Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 12:53:17 AM, you wrote:
engdev> I have been following this thread, and I find it amazing that Xiph is not
engdev> willing to put more effort into documentation. Many many times I have seen
engdev> great software discarded because of lack of documentation. I agree that the
engdev> lack of Monty has had a big impact - but should a project with the scope of
engdev> this one reside entirely in one persons head?

engdev> It is not enough to point people towards the code and say "There it is, it
engdev> works, that's all you need." Sadly it is not.

engdev> Vorbis may be free, but if it is too hard, many people would prefer to just
engdev> pay for somthing that is easy. Just look at the "wizards" that come with
engdev> software, mostly they are true crap, but they are easy, so people use them.

engdev> I don't mean to belittle the work done by Xiph, Monty, Garf and the other
engdev> developers - the project has such potential. But it needs to be taken the
engdev> whole way.

Owen, I don't really know how long have you been around, but I'll tell
you what I did with OpenBSD. The lost their DARPA contract due to Theo
De Raadt ideology. I like OpenBSD. So I donated $300. Which in my
country is half my wage. So I did an effort. Later on I found out that
the latest WiFi chipset from Atheros had a FreeBSD driver and a very
cheap WiFi chip from ADMTek had a NetBSD driver. I didn't went ranting
about how someone _should_ port it. I don't really have the knowledge,
so I told them that I was willing to donate the hardware if some
developer was interested. Luckily there's an Argentine developer who
was interested. So I donated the hardware. It didn't made it into 3.4.
Most probably will make it into 3.5 (that's March 04 timeframe). Am I
disapointed that even though I spent half my wage again I didn't saw
the results? No. You know why? Because I just donated the hardware. If
I had really wanted those drivers I should have made a $5000 contract.
So if you really want those features, make a contract or try to raise
donation money. I know that if my family wasn't going through one of
the worst things that can happen I would be donating to Xiph
foundation. At the very least I've sent congratulation emails to all
the developers on the release of Vorbis, FLAC (well before it was
Xiph), and Speex. I've personally extender a house to stay if for
whatever reason they decide to visit my country. I wish I lived in
Swizterland so I could afford to make thounsand of dollars on
donations. I can't. But I try to make it some other way. Do I rant
about what have they done? Nope. I try to help. I know that Graham has
really put a lot of work on documentation. And innumerable others have
put its little effort. What have you brought to the Xiph community?
Then that's your right to rant. Think about it.


-- 
Best regards,
 Alejandro Belluscio

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