[pulseaudio-discuss] [PATCH] Warn on attempts to build and load module-equalizer-sink

[David Henningsson]

On 2014-12-01 17:14, Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
> +    AS_HELP_STRING([--with-fftw],[Build FFTW-using module (equalizer). Note: the module has known-wrong DSP logic]))
> +AS_IF([test "x$HAVE_FFTW" = "x1"], ENABLE_FFTW="yes (BAD IDEA)", ENABLE_FFTW=no)
> +===== WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING =====
> +You have fftw support enabled. fftw is used only by
> +module-equalizer-sink, which has many bugs, including wrong DSP
> +logic. See details at:
> +
> +http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/2014-March/020174.html
> +https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41465
> +https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54881
> +https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69229
> +
> +It is suggested that you reconsider, unless you are a DSP
> +specialist willing to fix or rewrite the code and submit patches.

Please take it down a notch or two.

Ok, so module-equalizer-sink has known crashers. So has 
module-dbus-protocol [1], but we don't go all nuts like the above over 
module-dbus-protocol.

Ok, so module-equalizer-sink has "wrong DSP logic". But yet, people find 
it useful. Hence, DSP logic seems to be something that concerns DSP 
people more than casual listeners, who does not even know what "wrong 
DSP logic" means in practice. And since you seem to be the closest to a 
DSP specialist we have in this community, I'm sure it would be more 
appreciated if you spend time fixing the sink, rather than trying to 
take it down.

That said, I don't mind a warning message or two when trying to load a 
module that has known crashers, and that we don't have time/energy to 
fix. But the extent of the warning messages above makes this look more 
like "vendetta" and less like "politely inform the user". IMO.

As for building by default, I don't have a strong opinion on whether we 
do that or not - distros will disable or re-enable as they see fit anyhow.

-- 
David Henningsson, Canonical Ltd.
https://launchpad.net/~diwic

[1] AFAIK - I don't think Tanu has fixed all of them yet, but Tanu knows 
this better than I do.