lack of unique, innovative qualities Re: Phonon: Multimedia in KDE 4 (KDE.News) [LWN.net]

lack of unique, innovative qualities Re: Phonon: Multimedia in KDE 4 (KDE.News)

Posted Apr 28, 2006 14:21 UTC (Fri) by aseigo (guest, #18394)
In reply to: lack of unique, innovative qualities Re: Phonon: Multimedia in KDE 4 (KDE.News) by atai
Parent article: Phonon: Multimedia in KDE 4 (KDE.News)

> hat is new or unique of this new system in comparison to existing
> frameworks

very little. =) it has two important attributes: it allows any multimedia
stack to be plugged into it as a backend, preventing need to create a
whole media stack for kde and not having to pick one right now; it also
allows applications that have implemented essentially the same pattern to
share this code (amarok, juk, kaffeine, etc...)

> yet another thing to complicate the standardization of GNU/Linux on the
> desktop

quite the opposite, actually. if the linux desktop were to standardize of
FooBarMedia all kde would need to do is ensure there is a FooBarMedia
backend for Phonon. this makes kde flexible enough for whatever the
standard becomes. likewise, if no standard emerges, kde will be easily
adaptable to whatever is on a given platform simply by selecting the
appropriate Phonon backend (or writing one if it doesn't exist yet) and no
other changes in kde are necessary.

compare and contrast with what other projects are doing and how their
choices may end up impacting standardization efforts.

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