On Tue, 2012-10-16 at 11:06 +0100, Ross Kendall wrote: > On 16/10/12 09:21, Tanu Kaskinen wrote: > > >> <snip> > >> > >> I would like to just drop the closed modules, but is it an acceptable > >> solution? It would cause major regressions on Nemo's N900 hardware > >> adaptation at least: audio quality during calls would be bad (very bad, > >> I believe) and the speaker protection algorithm would not be available. > >> (I'm not sure if the N9/N950 adaptations would regress too - are the > >> closed bits currently used on those hw adaptations?) > >> > >> If those regressions are not acceptable, should we branch > >> PulseAudio in Nemo, so that everyone else could move on while Nemo stays > >> stuck on an old PulseAudio version? > >> > >> Or should I try to replace the closed algorithms with open source > >> algorithms? PulseAudio has some important algorithms already available, > >> but they are designed for desktop VoIP use, so I don't know how well > >> they would perform on a mobile phone. It would be an interesting > >> exercise to do in any case, but will it have to be done before > >> PulseAudio can be updated on Mer? > > No comments received... The plan is to go ahead with the integration, so > > if someone has hardware adaptations (other than N900/N9(50)) that use > > non-upstream pulseaudio modules, be prepared to port them to the new > > version. > > > Thanks for the earlier notification, it was appreciated. I didn't reply > because I'm not doing platform development and was expecting someone > else to reply. > > I'm just doing some simple app development for Nemo and have an N900 for > testing. I wouldn't want Nemo/Mer development being held back by an old > bit of hardware with binary blobs, but at the same time the N900 is my > only development device so it would be good to have some reassurance > that future builds of Nemo won't be crippled by regressions too much.
I believe the worsening of the call audio quality due to dropping the remaining closed bits will be an exception, at least as far as audio stuff goes. I have some personal interest in making the audio functionality on N900 better - it will remain my primary free time hacking device for the foreseeable future. > Is the option to "somehow branch PulseAudio in Nemo" still a possibility? I don't know. People might not like it if Pulseaudio in Nemo gets stuck forever at an ancient version, just to support N900 at the expense of all other devices. I also don't know how feasible it is even technically to maintain branches of Mer packages in Nemo (I'd guess that it's possible somehow, but I don't know how exactly it would be done and how much work it would take). -- Tanu
