[nycbug-talk] YouTube Channel for BSD Technical Talks

[Ray Lai]

On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 4:16 PM, Miles Nordin <carton at ivy.net> wrote:
>>>>>> "rl" == Ray Lai <nycbug at cyth.net> writes:
>
>    rl> Are you providing the bandwidth?
>
> were you not following the discussion?  I'm not providing the videos,
> the bandwidth, nor the content.  I thought that was pretty obvious,
> but in case you missed it, I'm not.  I'm complaining that I have to
> hear about it when I can't easily watch it.

My point was that it is the easiest way to publish videos online. I
personally do not have my own bandwidth to share videos with, so
YouTube would be the best way for me to upload videos.

> Obviously there are plenty of reasons to use Youtube which makes it
> popular.  Aside from ad-supported bandwidth, a lot of people use it
> because they already know how and are too lazy to learn more free but
> different and possibly more awkward tools, or they have some
> proprietary gizmo with a built-in Youtube! uploader so stupid-simple
> their kid sister can use it, and they don't want to deal with any of
> this techno mumbo jumbo, they want to go shopping for chocolate and
> shoes instead.  good reasons.  I never meant to say Youtube! is dumb
> and anyone who uses it is dumb.  I said, wouldn't it make sense to
> find another way to distribute videos if your intent is to advocate
> BSD?

Well, that's the problem. Who would provide the infrastructure?
Youtube is here, available, and free. If I wanted to share a video, I
can't be expected to develop a BSD plugin for Firefox first. And
anyway, I already mentioned such tools that are available.

> I think a software community is one level of dead when they don't have
> enough working tools to support themselves and have to borrow from
> some other ``enemy'' camp to survive, like downloading the source for
> cl-httpd from an Apache-run site, or developing FreeBSD inside
> VirtualBox on Mac OS X because FreeBSD can't host any reasonable
> virtualization (not even Xen, though NetBSD can do Xen dom0/domU).
> It's a whole 'nother level of dead when they HAVE tools available to
> support themselves, but choose not to use them.

Well, I'm not sure which level of dead I'm at... but for the record I
develop OpenBSD on an OpenBSD box. And about the only tools I use are
included in OpenBSD, except for the web browser. Sorry, it's a little
painful to use Lynx.

>    rl> Anyway there are YouTube rippers out there, gnash, and
>    rl> probably other stuff I don't know about.
>
> right, Ray.  That's what you do, is it?  use gnash?  which one do you
> use, the one in pkgsrc or freebsd ports or openbsd ports, eh?  I'm
> surprised the evil GNU license doesn't scare you away by trying to
> deprive programmers of a living or some such bullshit.

I've used gnash in the past, I didn't have much luck with it, from the
OpenBSD ports. I don't consider it evil, but I did use pedro@'s yt
program to extract Youtube videos and watch them on mplayer.

> get real.  You open it on a Mac, or probably on Windows.  and it's
> native Mac/Windows, not running inside a VM on a BSD host, isn't it?

When I am at a friend's Mac or Windows machine, yes, I would naturally
click on the link that opens Youtube, rather than running quickly to
my own laptop.

> That's what almost all of you sorry lot of motherfucking apologists
> do.  You tell me what my kind of marginal whiner ought to do if he
> cares so damn much, and brush under the rug what you do yourselves.
> I'm among the biggest BSD advocates here just because I watch Youtube
> under Opera with COMPAT_LINUX, and that's PATHETIC.

What I can suggest you do if you care so much, is work on a convenient
Flash player that works well in BSD. Right now I care about OpenCVS
and pcc, so I'm taking the code and playing with it, getting stuff in.
In the meantime I'm using GNU cvs and gcc where they fall short.

> Ubuntu people are really good about distributing their videos in open
> formats that play with the native software included in their
> distribution.

What formats do they distribute in? Though it's not video, Will
Backman provides his podcasts in mp3 and ogg format for BSDTalk.
OpenBSD does the same with each release song. They're a lot easier to
distribute due to their size, of course, and a lot better software
support for mp3s any video codecs out.

> And I guarantee you anyone who asks for a more free
> format will get a shamed apology, not a bunch of rants about how
> practical and profitable and successful the proprietary system is.

?

> CCC always gives me videos of the congress and the camp in a format I
> can play natively on BSD, even though the Krauts use almost
> exclusively Linux, rarely BSD.

What format is that in?

> It's only from other supposed BSD people I'm getting the crappy
> proprietary formats.  How can I complain to Linux-centric developers
> that they keep breaking the ffmpeg builds on BSD with their Linuxisms,
> when there's such shitty advocacy from within the BSD camp?  On BSD
> where getting FLASH to work is much harder than Ubuntu, _I'm_ the
> troll for asking for an open format, and I'm supposed to accomodate
> the platform-insensitive choices of these supposed advocates?

I wasn't advocating anything, I was trying to explain the video
author's position and offer solutions I've used in the past. I never
called you a troll.

> Yes, I am.  That is, as you've all just collectively defined it, the
> BSD culture.
>
> And that's why your OS is so fucking dead!  It's your own damn fault.
> What a disappointment.

Don't worry, 2009 is almost here.

-Ray-