Andreas Hartmetz schrieb: > On Monday 08 February 2010 15:24:30 you wrote: > >> Andreas, please CC kopete-devel next time. We discussed that there >> during the last 2 weeks. >> This has been a commit to the trunk (far away from the next release) and >> it really didn't break anything essential. >> So it would have been nice if you had consulted the devel-list before >> reverting it. >> Please join the list for discussion. >> >> Andreas Hartmetz schrieb: >> >>> SVN commit 1087015 by ahartmetz: >>> >>> Do not refuse to build without libv4l2 because Kopete also works without >>> v4l, only the webcam part won't work. >>> >> Why do you want to compile Kopete without webcam-support on Linux and >> how would you do that ? >> If you really insist on keeping this as an option, please modify the >> cmake-files to not search for libv4l in that case. >> > I want to compile Kopete without video support because it doesn't compile at > all otherwise. I downloaded libv4l and it didn't compile on the system I was > on at the time, at university, where I don't have admin rights. > You don't need admin rights to compile libv4l. If you can compile and install KDE/Kopete on your system, you can compile and install libv4l, too. >>> Note to bug reporters using source distros: >>> you should know what you're doing and understand dependencies. >>> It's also incosistent to depend on something that is really not essential >>> only when compiling on a specific platform. >>> >> I don't agree. Like it or not, libv4l *is* de facto essential in todays >> Linux-world. >> It provides all the device-specific-decoders, which the kernel-deves >> decided to "push them out somewhere to userspace". >> This is a highly political issue, but we simply have to accept the >> current situation and have to manage it. >> There are too many bug reports about not or poorly working webcams and >> most of them are caused by packages compiled without libv4l. >> > > You could add some cheap hack (least amount of work possible) to show some > kind of error message or warning about missing video support. So why don't you send some patches with these "cheap hacks" ? ;)
Going a bit deeper into the code, you'll se that it's not that easy. Error-handling will become quite complex and in many cases you can't determine if libv4l would help. We are not talking about the decoders only, libv4l provides lots of additional features which increase compatibility and image quality of many video-devices. Take a look at the libv4l-README and the changelog for details. > Besides, > somebody who builds kopete should *really* understand build dependencies. > It sucks that people apparently can't read... > FWIW, I've never owned a webcam. > Our mistake, we shouldn't declare something as optional which is in fact essential. >>> libv4l is also not easy to >>> >>> impossible to compile on old kernels where the rest of Kopete works fine. >>> >> libv4l compiles at least on the last 8 kernel-versions (and likely on >> olders, too). >> Tells us, how far should we go with backwards-compatibility ? ;) >> > > I'm not sure *why* libv4l did not compile on that system I mentioned, the > kernel was not extremely old. :/ > I don't know, too. It's really easy to compile libv4l. :) > See it from my perspective: Some software I use all the time suddenly refuses > to compile because I don't have something that I don't need anyway, and the > software decides that it's not worth compiling without that, uhm, essential > feature. Kopete actually is somewhat important for me, video support I never > use. > You can make it suddenly work again by installing libv4l ;) . Please note: there is currently NO possibility to compile Kopete WITHOUT the webcam-part. Maybe we could change this in the future, but it's a bigger task with a low prority at the moment. If you think it's worth the work and you can spend some time on it, your work will be appreciated. I personally prefer spending my limited time on improving the webcam-code to make it more usable for people and the protocols. Cheers, Frank _______________________________________________ kopete-devel mailing list [email protected] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kopete-devel
