Open Source Meeting/2008-03-13

< Open Source Meeting
Open source meeting - Thursday, 2pm PT on 2008-03-13
== Agenda ==
# Update from the Lindens (standing item) - Rob Linden
# Copyleft/share-alike permission for SL Items (http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2571) - Opensource Obscure
# VWR-729, "Viewer's Locale handling pretty much sucking in fundamental ways", any suggestions from the OSS community on what to do and how to improve the situation with locale handing? - Michelle2 Zenovka
== Transcript ==
* [14:07] Rob Linden: okee dokee: agenda is here: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Source_Meeting/Agenda
* [14:07] Rob Linden: transcript will be posted on the wiki later (starting now)
* [14:07] Rob Linden: so....don't say anything you wouldn't want to have show up there
* [14:08] Seg Baphomet: Hi mom!
* [14:08] Rob Linden: first item: update from the Lindens
* [14:09] Rob Linden: mulls what he's been working on that he can talk about
* [14:09] Rob Linden: Soft: you wanna give your update?
* [14:09] Michelle2 Zenovka: dam daylight savings time non uniform between countrys
* [14:10] Soft Linden: I'm caught off guard here. :) I haven't a lot to talk about that's specifically OSS related. I've been heads down on wrapping up TP, inventory and security issues in the last couple weeks.
* [14:10] Soft Linden: Other than just the ongoing source pushes. It's worth noting that we're migrating over to making the external branches match our internal ones...
* [14:11] Soft Linden: With each new branch I create, I'm now using the internal name, and the first two submits get it up to the point where the branch was created, so you can see exactly which changes are related to a specific branch now.
* [14:12] Arawn Spitteler: wonders where Michelle could Jira the lack of warning flag, when people post times in the current conflict.
* [14:12] Soft Linden: Going forward, I'm itchy to get the fmod changes into QA. 1.19.1 and parcel media changed up some things that broke the current patch set, unfortuantely. :( I think M2 can speak to those a lot better than I could.
* [14:13] Rob Linden: Soft: which FMOD changes are those?
* [14:13] Soft Linden: I meant openal
* [14:13] Soft Linden: The fmod knockout changes :)
* [14:13] Rob Linden: ah.....cool
* [14:13] Michelle2 Zenovka: Not got some of that fixed yet wrt streaming.
* [14:13] Michelle2 Zenovka: We really need to spawn off streaming audio in to a llmedia class and keep it seperate to openal
* [14:13] Seg Baphomet: I finally got 1.19.0.5 compiled yesterday.
* [14:14] Soft Linden: That makes sense.
* [14:14] Seg Baphomet: As usual it needed some hacks to build without llmozlib. Also, gcc 4.3 issues are... fun.
* [14:15] Michelle2 Zenovka: I need to look at streaming again, it was a hack using the video streamer to play audio only and *hoping* that nothing crashed. It needs to be done properly
* [14:15] Soft Linden: Seg, have those been compile issues only, or are you seeing runtime problems with 4.3?
* [14:15] Saijanai Kuhn: btw, is theis where teh AWG II is planned or will we have a larger sitting space
* [14:16] Seg Baphomet: Compile issues. I haven't used the client much but it seems to work as well as it ever did.
* [14:16] Michelle2 Zenovka: I've got llmozlib2 running on system xulrunner again with no noticable issues or at least as well as that ever did too
* [14:16] Soft Linden: Cool. I don't know if we'd submit new gcc 4.3 fixes against 1.19.0, but if you see them persist in 1.19.1 it's definitely worth rushing them in.
* [14:16] Soft Linden: Ah, cool!
* [14:17] Michelle2 Zenovka: I've created a clean fork of the llmozlib2 code with a sane build environment so its easy to deal with it for me anyway
* [14:17] Seg Baphomet: Actually all I really had to do is replace __gnu_cxx::hash with std::tr1::hash in llhash.h
* [14:18] Soft Linden: Michelle - is there anything about your build enviro that would break the other platforms? Would it make sense to bring those changes in?
* [14:18] Seg Baphomet: Which may or may not be the right thing, but ext/hashtable.h is gone from gcc 4.3 at any rate.
* [14:18] Michelle2 Zenovka: Well the changes are basicly having autotools avaiable, in theory my autotools build could be extended to also build the "linden" way if mozilla has previously been downloaded and compiled, from that point of view yoo can use xulrunner headers or just point it at the mozilla tree
* [14:19] Soft Linden: That's worth #ifdefing in if the portion of the interface we use is identical anyway, Seg
* [14:19] Seg Baphomet: I think I'll post to sldev before I Jira it.
* [14:20] Seg Baphomet: I'm not an STL wizard. Yet.
* [14:20] Soft Linden: Michelle, I don't know if I fully follow. But if it would save work on updates, maybe raise that on sldev and we can see if Callum wants to take it in?
* [14:20] Seg Baphomet: There's already a fun pile of ifdefs in there already whee.
* [14:20] Rob Linden: is holding off from his update because this is a good conversation
* [14:21] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea sure, i'm not sure its any internal benift ATM however
* [14:21] Soft Linden: If it gets it closer to a standardized build, it's good. I don't know if we need to keep it all "lindeny" if it's being treated as an external library outside the tree anyway. And it does increase the probability of third-party uptake, which we *do* want.
* [14:22] Michelle2 Zenovka: probably should look at cmake to drive it all, might be a lot more useful and x-platform that autotools or a bunch of shell scripts
* [14:22] Seg Baphomet: Oh yeah, there's a crapload of deprecated API warnings with gcc4.3.
* [14:22] Rob Linden: +1 on looking at cmake
* [14:22] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea its been on my todo radar with mozlib, like.. forever
* [14:23] Rob Linden: I can see why autotools would be more comfortable/familiar
* [14:23] Seg Baphomet: Heh.
* [14:23] Michelle2 Zenovka: well now i have played with cmake and even did the unix install target for the viewer, i'm a lot happer
* [14:23] Seg Baphomet: Autotools is voodoo.
* [14:25] Soft Linden: Cool. I think that's about all I have on my mind. Other than - it might be good to hash out a quick interface for streaming audio on sldev, and we could wedge in a change to that before the openal work is ready, so we can get rid of that moving target :P
* [14:25] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea, i vote to keep the issues seperate, then they are both smaller and more managable
* [14:25] Rob Linden: I've never figured out autotools, but I could understand why someone who went through all of the work of understanding autotools would hestitate to learn yet another system (or at least, not get around to it super quickly)
* [14:25] Rob Linden: has been working on Google SoC application, there was a press inquiry that may result in a nice writeup (we'll see)
* [14:26] Michelle2 Zenovka: there is no reason why streaming via gstreamer cannot enter before openal
* [14:26] Soft Linden: Good point
* [14:26] Seg Baphomet: Need to nuke all the streaming stuff from the audioengine class.
* [14:26] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea, it needs to go to llmedia
* [14:27] Seg Baphomet: Thing is... with fmod you'd need to stub it back over to the fmod implementation.
* [14:27] Michelle2 Zenovka: yea thats a bit messy, i agree
* [14:27] Seg Baphomet: Unless you want to require Quicktime on Win32...
* [14:28] Rob Linden: I've also been having a lot of discussions about how and why Linden Lab can and should operate more like is expected from a typical open source project
* [14:28] Seg Baphomet: I think slviewer really needs to dump Quicktime in favor of Windows Media on windows. When in rome...
* [14:28] Saijanai Kuhn: wonders how that is defined...
* [14:28] Saijanai Kuhn: does Windows Media hanbdle all QT formats?
* [14:28] Rob Linden: I don't think it does
* [14:29] Soft Linden: I'm really uncomfortable with that without disabling the Windows-specific formats. I don't want a bunch of wmv parcels :P
* [14:29] Seg Baphomet: Not like quicktime is much better...
* [14:29] Saijanai Kuhn: I believe LInux handes most QT formats except the bigone because they don't pay the licensiing fee (Sorenson)
* [14:29] Soft Linden: Yeah, but at least QuickTime is 99%, not 95% user base. From that standpoint, wmp would be a step backward.
* [14:30] Seg Baphomet: I think people are still using Sorenson.
* [14:30] Rob Linden: thinks Seg is right
* [14:30] Saijanai Kuhn: Sorenson II is the standard for most things if yuo don't use H264
* [14:30] Seg Baphomet: Which is no less proprietary than WMV. Can't win, really.
* [14:31] Saijanai Kuhn: well, Apple pays for Sorenson to be available on Windows. MS won't let the latest windows media play on macs
* [14:31] Saijanai Kuhn: so its somewhat more accessable
* [14:31] Mm Alder: Did I hear someone say plugin? :-)
* [14:32] Seg Baphomet: Apple's been pushing MPEG4 and H.264 lately.
* [14:32] Soft Linden: Well, with gstreamer we get plugins, and people can be naughty if they wish.
* [14:32] Saijanai Kuhn: is there a WMV plugin for QT?
* [14:32] Saijanai Kuhn: the latest version I mean
* [14:32] Soft Linden: WMV sans DRM, I believe.
* [14:32] Soft Linden: Or is that WMA with the DRM?
* [14:32] Saijanai Kuhn: there's not even a ltatest version for the WMV on Macs
* [14:33] Seg Baphomet: Gstreamer on OSX? :)
* [14:33] Saijanai Kuhn: does that handdle the proprietary stuff?
* [14:33] Soft Linden: Roping this all in though - for streaming audio at the least, shifting to gstreamer on all platforms would make a lot of sense if feasible. Video's not necessarily the same issue.
* [14:34] Seg Baphomet: Basically video is a nightmare. The only non-proprietary solution is vorbis/theora
* [14:34] Rob Linden: we're kinda stuck with supporting everything that's supported by Quicktime, just due to inertia
* [14:34] Rob Linden: ....since if we stopped supporting Quicktime on Windows/Mac, there'd be a pretty big uproar
* [14:35] Seg Baphomet: So called standards like MPEG are still patent minefields.
* [14:36] Saijanai Kuhn: interesting GS streamer has lugins for proprietary content *creatiuon* but not playback
* [14:36] Seg Baphomet: MPEG4/MP3 should work everywhere. But of course, patents...
* [14:36] Saijanai Kuhn: plugins*
* [14:37] Rob Linden: I'd pursue a deal with Real/Helix if there was community interest in doing that, but it's not something I would try to sell around these parts if there was positively no interest
* [14:37] Saijanai Kuhn: there's x264 and H264 and they're incompatible...
* [14:38] Seg Baphomet: Hasn't Real been irrelevant for some time now? :)
* [14:38] Soft Linden: NPR and AM stations' radio streams seem to be the biggest Real holdouts.
* [14:38] Rob Linden: well.....Real has been doing pretty well in the mobile space, and they actually have licenses for things like H.264 that they can actually offer for Windows/Mac/Linux
* [14:38] Seg Baphomet: Got eaten by Windows Media. :P
* [14:39] Rob Linden: I think OLPC is using Helix as the main media player
* [14:39] Rob Linden: it's a lot lighter than GStreamer
* [14:39] Michelle2 Zenovka: It dosn't play anything thats why
* [14:39] Rob Linden: and there's Vorbis and Theora plugins for it
* [14:39] Rob Linden: ...but, like I said, I'm not going to press the point
* [14:40] Rob Linden: (it's not my job to press that point anymore) ;-)
* [14:40] Soft Linden: It would be interesting to ping and see if Real wanted to do the work. Helix is all open source, apart from the Real CODECs?
* [14:40] Rob Linden: correct, Soft
* [14:40] Seg Baphomet: It depends on what the goal is.
* [14:41] Mm Alder: Rob: I think with the 1.19.1.0 release of HTML on a prom, you'll be hearing more about that than streaming video.
* [14:41] Rob Linden: Seg: goal would be uniform codec support on Windows/Mac/Linux that could ship with the viewer
* [14:41] Arawn Spitteler: suggests Source Point Seperation: I seem to recall Linux has a problem, with some media. Is it possible to mention which media would be universally supported?
* [14:41] Seg Baphomet: If you want universal support, MPEG4/MP3 is the way to go.
* [14:41] Saijanai Kuhn: still haven't been able to test html-on-a prim. No priivelegdes
* [14:41] Saijanai Kuhn: however its spelled
* [14:41] Seg Baphomet: But that's patent city.
* [14:41] Seg Baphomet: If you want license free, vorbis/theora.
* [14:42] Michelle2 Zenovka: Html on a prim seems fine to me, i assume it is *view* only not interactive and my mozlib hasnt killed something
* [14:42] Rob Linden: I doubt Real could be convinced to do the dev work, but a license is doable
* [14:42] Seg Baphomet: Theora's not got much mindshare yet though.
* [14:42] Saijanai Kuhn: we should defnitely be using it for the AWG II next week. But, like I said, I haven't seen it workign anywhere
* [14:42] Rob Linden: content creation for Theora is rough
* [14:43] Rob Linden: that's where Quicktime has a monsterous advantage
* [14:43] Seg Baphomet: Ahahahaha...
* [14:43] Michelle2 Zenovka: Any chance of maybe displaying meeting ajenda here via web on a prim?
* [14:43] Rob Linden: heh...that didn't even occur to me
* [14:44] Rob Linden: we should move on to the other agenda items
* [14:44] Arawn Spitteler: saw that at Bridey's Place, yesterday.
* [14:44] Saijanai Kuhn: I'd like to see SOMETHIGN use it...
* [14:44] Seg Baphomet: I've found no way to create anything QT will play, without paying for Quicktime Pro.
* [14:44] Soft Linden: It's a shame nobody's come up with a point-and-click converter to turn media into something SL-streamable. You can do it with a number of tools such as VLC or its command-line equivalent. If someone pitched something like that out there, they could pretty much dictate the main format for SL video at the least.
* [14:45] Rob Linden: since opensource obscure doesn't appear to be here, maybe we can skip to Michelle2's item
* [14:45] Saijanai Kuhn: most of the commercial packages do it. BTW< QT pro is just an interface mod. All QT features are available on all QT distrobutions
* [14:45] Seg Baphomet: There's VirtualDub, but it doesn't do QT at all.
* [14:45] Rob Linden: "# VWR-729, "Viewer's Locale handling pretty much sucking in fundamental ways", any suggestions from the OSS community on what to do and how to improve the situation with locale handing? - Michelle2 Zenovka "
* [14:45] Saijanai Kuhn: so you could write your own interface to it and have it all...
* [14:45] Michelle2 Zenovka: the quotes are Tofu's words :-)
* [14:45] Seg Baphomet: If VirtualDub has ogg/vorbis/Theora support these days, that would take care of Windows users...
* [14:46] Michelle2 Zenovka: Yea its all kicked off with this dam bone with out position due to locale handing not working, aparently mozlib AND gstreamer reck the locale setting for one so they are both pushed and popped, also EVERY get text does horrible things and its a nightmare
* [14:47] Michelle2 Zenovka: the viewer needs a universal locale handing plan
* [14:47] Mm Alder: Michelle: Maybe the first step is to outline a plan on the wiki.
* [14:48] Michelle2 Zenovka: So thats where we are RC1 is still broken due to gstreamer breaking the locale, RC2 looks like its going to be pactched up at least but expect breakage as Todu says its un maintainable
* [14:48] Michelle2 Zenovka: *Tofu
* [14:48] Seg Baphomet: Hmmm, theora bitsream format was frozen back in 2004
* [14:49] Michelle2 Zenovka: Mm: Yes good idea, need input from non english and non latin letter uers as well as i know little about Eastern text input and how well that works etc
* [14:50] Mm Alder: Michelle: It's not just the font, it's commas versus periods in numbers.
* [14:51] Michelle2 Zenovka: I know the root of the problem, but if we are just changing locale settings to force that to C for example for the whole viewer, who does it upset. Its fine for us on en_xx.UTF-8 but we could cause breakage that could be avoided by design
* [14:52] Michelle2 Zenovka: Can we just force "C" and let everybody just get on with it?
* [14:53] Michelle2 Zenovka: Or should the viewer operate in the native locale and only force C for the xml parser?
* [14:54] Poppy Linden: That sounds reasonable
* [14:54] Poppy Linden: Have you brought any of this up at an i18n triage?
* [14:54] Poppy Linden: 
* [14:54] Seg Baphomet: That sounds like the XML parser is broken...
* [14:54] Michelle2 Zenovka: no C is broken
* [14:54] Soft Linden: Ergh - doesn't xml specify the encoding at the top anyway? Has the parser been breaking with different locales? That sounds like a parser bug all else aside.
* [14:54] Michelle2 Zenovka: fscanf will use the locale and we all dissagree on decimal point seperators
* [14:54] Rob Linden: actually, Poppy, I don't think an i18n triage has happened in a while
* [14:55] Rob Linden: would be very happy if they have happened
* [14:55] Poppy Linden: Seg, the parser expectinng data to change by locale makes sense, but our data doesn't change
* [14:56] Poppy Linden: if we're passing data from a known locale (such as C) forcing it over to that temporarily makes sense
* [14:56] Seg Baphomet: Hrm. XML specifies encoding, but that's not the same as locale...
* [14:56] Poppy Linden: right
* [14:57] Seg Baphomet: I don't know that XML specifies how to handle this. Been a while since I read the spec...
* [14:57] Poppy Linden: robla, when did that stop? that makes me sad to hear
* [14:57] Rob Linden: a few months ago
* [14:57] Michelle2 Zenovka: well the problem is we only can be certain we know we have "C" locale installed so we allways know we can deal with . as a decimal
* [14:57] Poppy Linden: i could ask zero, i'm pairing with him right after this to work on .our PHP xml parser
* [14:58] Michelle2 Zenovka: I would speak to Tofu too, he's taking control of patching this issue so far
* [14:59] Rob Linden: okee dokee....we're running out of time here.
* [15:00] Rob Linden: Michelle2: please kick up more dust on the mailing list on this issue
* [15:00] Michelle2 Zenovka: sure
* [15:00] Rob Linden: I'll see if I can raise the profile of this issue at Linden a little bit
* [15:00] Mm Alder: Rob: I wann see HTML on that wall to your left next week. :-)
* [15:00] Michelle2 Zenovka: Well i hope so, its recked a RC
* [15:01] Rob Linden: anything else we need to cover here?
* [15:01] Seg Baphomet: I think the problem is few people know the voodoo of i18n in C...
* [15:01] Poppy Linden: yeah, i can tell you I don't know about i18n stuff and i can't speak for the other lindens here, but if you're shooting for linden ears maybe a triage mtg?
* [15:02] Seg Baphomet: I sure don't. :)
* [15:02] Rob Linden: alright....thanks everyone for coming