On Thu, 18 Feb 2016, coypu%SDF.ORG@localhost wrote:
I've heard countless complaints about how PulseAudio doesn't do X,Y or is bad at doing Z.
I don't know about countless, but I certainly have over a dozen, most of which are still reflected as active bugs.
Let me show you a graph: https://github.com/pulseaudio/pulseaudio/graphs/contributors?from=2015-01-01&to=2016-01-01&type=c Committers to PulseAudio in the year 2015. You may recognise #5 as our very own Kamil Rytarowski, having cleaned up and sent 8 patches from pkgsrc.
That's because you guys rock and are focused on doing good work. Those folks must also be less sensitive/bitchy than I am, granted. I did look at the graph and all I can say is "bless you guys". I have nothing but good/positive things to say about the pkgsrc maintainers.
There aren't many people working on it, and they're working on it (apparently) in their free time.
I am sure you are right. I don't know if Lennart gets paid to do it or not, but if so, I suspect he is the only one. I am very glad that folks show this volunteer spirit. I don't want to speak against their noble efforts or be overly critical of their free work, looking a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.
This is true for most open source projects. I would be very surprised if it is any different for other sound-related projects.
Again, I agree with you. However, I believe I'm making a couple of subtle points that might be obscured by all the technical criticisms. That is that some projects or ideas actually poison the well. They are so poorly designed or so poorly implemented that they actually do more harm than good, or displace other less-vocal projects that are doing a better job (JACK comes to mind). Another point worth mentioning is that Lennart is also responsible for systemd. Both projects have been as much of a setback as a help (perhaps more when you consider the soft-ramifications of all the political chaos systemd has caused). They have both suffered deep design and quality problems. They both displace other projects with superior designs, IMHO (albeit less publicity).
If a fraction of the people complaining about it did something to develop it or one of the alternatives, their reasons for complaining would quickly disappear.
Meaning no disrespect to you, some of my reasons would not disappear regardless of how much free work I was to give to these folks. For example, what about the reason that it's poorly designed and displaces better designs simply because it was blessed by a few leaders of Gnome and by Mr Pottering ? I thought Open Source & Freeware ideals are based on meritocracy, not political connections or loudmouthery. While I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, I disagree that it can be applied so categorically. It's throwing good effort at a bad cause. In my opinion it's like saying you shouldn't buy a car when you haven't done enough work to fix up your skateboard. Yes, they are both forms of transportation, but one is clearly superior for transport of humans long distances over rough terrain, and a skateboard is never really going to be up to that job without some very heavy modifications you wouldn't need to make to a car.
Yes, it's not nice to rag on a free project run by volunteers. That goes double when you aren't helping fix the issues. I agree with you on that and my past actions demonstrate that I'm willing to submit patches, write modules, submit bug reports etc... I'm not a total open source freeloader.
However, please consider that it's also a mistake to continually back a badly designed and operated project no matter how much it drags down it's dependencies. Folks also act like Pulseaudio is somehow better or more important than JACK, ALSA, OSS, or Esound. Why? Why should it get special consideration vis-a-vis the competition ? Is it because the GNOME guys blessed it? Big deal. IMO, they have a history of making poor decisions, too. That's especially troubling considering that, in my opinion, the competition to Pulseaudio is smaller, more reliable, and delivers on their promises (and did so before PulseAudio even existed in most cases).
The <=4 people actively developing it in their free time cannot address all the bugs, especially if the bug reports are not extremely good.
I completely understand what you are saying and as a standalone statement, I also agree. As a programmer, I understand that you can't fix things without good bug/problem reports. However, testing and bug reports take work. Why should I give my work to Lennart's project rather than just use something else that already works great ?
That holds true for most open source projects.
I agree. In 99% of cases, I'd roll up my sleeves and try to help. However, not this time. Why allow Pulseaudio to bully-out all the other projects as has been done on Ubuntu (not that you are suggesting this) ? Keep in mind this whole discussion is about the fact that Firefox has PulseAudio as an option but choosing it (or not) has caused some problematic outcomes.
I just want to continue to see PulseAudio as one optional component among many, not as some inevitable blight we all have to accept since Lennart and Gnome told us to. I also don't, in general, accept the "get in the boat or shut up" attitude. I get it, but I don't buy it in this case. We don't _want_ to become Linux. Why accept their often flawed preconceptions without challenge ? Why sit down and row next to someone when you don't even like the boat or the direction it's going ?
-Swift