On Mar 18, 2006, at 7:23 PM, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
On Mar 18, 2006, at 7:15 PM, Frank Barknecht wrote:
We do need to draw a line somewhere about what to include in a Pd distribution and what to leave out. Every software package has to decide such things, Max has to, Pd has to, Ardour has to, Firefox has to. And I would draw that line when it comes to plugins. DSSI and LADSPA are well defined interfaces that were designed with the main goal in mind, that plugin authors and the authors of plugin host software should be able to work independently. Including plugins in the Pd CVS would defy that underlying idea of DSSI and LADSPA.
What I don't understand with this whole thread is how is anyone harmed if the plugin source code is included? Ok, in theory, its a plugin and meant to be standalone, but in practice its just a piece of code like any other.
...here we're talking about two audio plugins: would you want to include a selection of vst plugins where source is available? How about extending this to freeframe video plugins, which are supported by both GEM and PDP? I think it's enough to have the plugin loader, and then let the user find out about where to get plugins via a helpfile...
There is a real harm in not including them: people won't use them because of the large hurdle in getting them running. And that to me is sad since most code is written for people to use.
...other than the harm of bloat and extended compiles and packagings...I think a better way to get over the "large hurdle" of placing plugins in the correct place for use would be to follow what Iohannes has done with Gem's freeframe and shader/program loading code: make it search the paths that pd already looks into, like loading any other patch...it works very nicely, and would be a good addition to the ladpsa loaders...
When I include code in Pd-extended, I make sure its works on Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and Windows. I would do the same for any plugin source that I included. Just look at Pd-0.38.4-extended. I am not saying there aren't problems with it, but look at the situation before.
...you have done a great job with pd-extended, but you can't expect to cover all bases on such an open ended system, nor should you want to: it'll just never happen...
That's my final two bits, I've spent too much time on this topic...
...yes, please, move on...
james