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Is VLC becoming a bloatware ? ? ?

Posted: 16 Feb 2009 12:24
by zinahe
Don't get me wrong here. I love VLC and I've been using it exclusively for many years. But lately I have noticed that the size of binaries for windows are growing at an alarming rate.

VLC 0.8.6 -> 9MB
VLC 0.9.8 -> 15MB

What's going on here ?

Re: Is VLC becoming a bloatware ? ? ?

Posted: 16 Feb 2009 15:26
by Jean-Baptiste Kempf
Well, translations are taking more and more space.
Then, we splitted the ffmpeg codec in two parts, but we need the same library linked statically, so we have a 5MB duplication.
Then, there are many new features, and they take space.
Then, the code is compiled in a "faster mode" more than in "smaller mode".
Finally, the new GUI takes more some space (plus many new icons ) because it uses a more powerful library.

Re: Is VLC becoming a bloatware ? ? ?

Posted: 16 Feb 2009 17:31
by zinahe
Thanks j-b,

I understand the current focus is to make VLC feature-complete.

But is there by any chance a plan review the code thoroughly ?

And if I compile VLC from source with only the parts I need would I end-up with a smaller binary ?

Regards,

Zinahe A.

Re: Is VLC becoming a bloatware ? ? ?

Posted: 16 Feb 2009 17:48
by Jean-Baptiste Kempf
"But is there by any chance a plan review the code thoroughly ?" I don't get what you mean.

"And if I compile VLC from source with only the parts I need would I end-up with a smaller binary ?" yes.

Re: Is VLC becoming a bloatware ? ? ?

Posted: 16 Feb 2009 18:27
by zinahe
"But is there by any chance a plan review the code thoroughly ?" I don't get what you mean.
You said there is a duplicate of some sort in one of the codecs. I'm assuming since the focus at the moment is to add the missing features, the code might not be optimized; and hence the ever-increasing size. So I'm wondering if there is a plan to review/restructure/improve the code. I'm sure you'll agree with me that this is a normal practice in software development. (re-factoring)

Zinahe A.

Re: Is VLC becoming a bloatware ? ? ?

Posted: 16 Feb 2009 18:31
by Jean-Baptiste Kempf
No, the problem is not a code one, but a linking one.