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There is Something Inspiring About Open Source and the Internet

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  • #1

    There is Something Inspiring About Open Source and the Internet

    Sometimes when I download a program, I also download the source code. Just to see what other poets are doing

    It's amazing how contributors always seem to come from all over the planet. No, I don't track them down, it is evident from the names and surnames.

    It's always the same pattern. Some French guy did this, some Japanese guy did that, some Chinese guy contributed something else...

    They most likely will never meet in person, nobody forced them to cooperate, but they still do.

    I find it great

    Join me in giving some respect to these generally underappreciated fellows

    Here is the example that inspired this post:

    Code:
    AC3 plugin for The Core Pocket Media Player

using liba52 (using source from ffmpeg 0.4.8)
Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Michel Lespinasse 
Copyright (C) 1999-2000 Aaron Holtzman 

Aaron Holtzman started the project and
made the initial working implementation.

Michel Lespinasse did major changes for speed and
conformance and is the current maintainer.

Other contributors include:
	Gildas Bazin - mingw32 port
	Billy Biggs - most of liba52.txt
	Eduard Hasenleithner - gcc 3.0 fixes
	HÃ¥kan Hjort - Solaris output, mlib code
	Charles M. Hannum - fixes
	Chris Hodges - made the library reentrant
	Michael Holzt - OSS output.c and misc errata
	Angelos Keromytis - OpenBSD fixes
	David I. Lehn - API cleanup suggestion
	Don Mahurin - stdin support for extract_a52
	Jim Miller  - IRIX output.c
	Takefumi Sayo - FreeBSD tweak
	Shoji Tokunaga - aif file output

(let me know if I forgot anyone)
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Incidentally, Billy Biggs is a good guy. As I recall, he knows his video very well and is collegial, even when he challenges. Something of a difficult thing to do. I don't know his whole history, but AFAIK he's Canadian.
    Last edited by DanS; February 12, 2008, 19:11.
    I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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    • #3
      HUH?!

      You must be kidding... you can't seriously know a guy from that list? I mean, what are the odds?

      Comment

      • #4
        Most of the time, what the author has done is taken a bunch of general use libs and such, and put them together to make his product (along with his own work of course). Thus most of the people in a list like that are 'on' lots of lists, as many people reused their libs. The GTK+ folks for example 'contribute' indirectly to a ton of projects...
        <Reverend> IRC is just multiplayer notepad.
        I like your SNOOPY POSTER! - While you Wait quote.

        Comment

        • #5
          Originally posted by VetLegion
          HUH?!

          You must be kidding... you can't seriously know a guy from that list? I mean, what are the odds?
          Well, more that I know of him. I've seen him work and interact with other coders and I think I've exchanged e-mail with him from time to time. It was on an old Hotmail account that I abandoned, so I can't reread the conversations.

          In any event, he is behind tvtime. I help out managing a Windows video open source project from which he borrowed some code several years ago. (I'm not much of a coder myself, I just make myself useful.)

          You can't really forget a name like Billy Biggs.
          I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

          Comment

          • #6
            Some people spend a lot of time posting here, some watch hours of football replays, others spend a lot of time having sex to the point they lose all their money, some simply collect stamps all day and wank. People do different things in their downtime, it only stands to reason some would also have an obsession with tweaking obscure open source software programs for the benefit of a few North Koreans who want their inventory screen to have a picture of Kim Jong Ill on it. It's natural, these people should not be thanked anymore than the stamp collectors with OCD.

            Comment

            • #7
              Originally posted by Wiglaf
              Some people spend a lot of time posting here, some watch hours of football replays, others spend a lot of time having sex to the point they lose all their money, some simply collect stamps all day and wank. People do different things in their downtime, it only stands to reason some would also have an obsession with tweaking obscure open source software programs for the benefit of a few North Koreans who want their inventory screen to have a picture of Kim Jong Ill on it. It's natural, these people should not be thanked anymore than the stamp collectors with OCD.
              0/10.
              You need new fishing rods, Wiglaf.
              Graffiti in a public toilet
              Do not require skill or wit
              Among the **** we all are poets
              Among the poets we are ****.

              Comment

              • #8
                Whose DL are you? You and Serb seem to have a lot in common

                Comment

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