[ANNOUNCEMENT] Resumed maintenance of libmikmod and mikmod.

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Nadav,

On Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:39:29 +0300
Nadav Har'El <nyh at math.technion.ac.il> wrote:

> Hi Shomi,
> 
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012, Shlomi Fish wrote about "[ANNOUNCEMENT] Resumed maintenance of libmikmod and mikmod.":
> > libmikmod is a portable and open-source (LGPLed) library for playing various
> > common formats of Module files, including MOD, S3M, XM, and IT. mikmod is a
> > Curses-based front-end for it, freely available under the GPL. Shlomi Fish would
> > like to announce that he resumed maintenance of libmikmod and mikmod, after many
> 
> That's great. I have fond memories of these "mod" songs, which were "the
> thing" in the early 90s, before storing and transferring recorded music
> became practical. I used to have whole diskettes (!) full of these things ;-)
> 

Nice. I think by the time I was introduced to the MOD scene, I kept most of my
module files on my hard-disk.

> >..
> > The version control repository was converted from CVS to Mercurial, and more
> >..
> > converting the build system from GNU Autotools to CMake, and then looking into
> >..
> 
> I'm curious - I'm sure you didn't pick up mikmod just to convert its
> makefile (a move which I have to admit, I don't like). What "itch" did
> you have in mikmod which you wanted to "scratch"? I.e., what big feature
> are you thinking of adding or annoying bug you wanted to fix?
> 

Well, my main itch was the fact that the libmikmod package on Mageia Linux (and
previously, Mandriva Linux) has accumulated a lot of downstream patches,
including ones for security problems, and I wanted to get them applied to the
upstream code to relieve the maintenance burden (and to get them fixed in a
more centralised fashion).

In addition, I had invested some previous time and effort in MikMod,
having contributed some patches to it previously, and also prepared a
port of an old version to Java (see http://jmikmod.shlomifish.org/ ,
though it often mis-renders many songs that the original C version played fine,
due to problems in porting and the lack of unsigned integer types in the Java
language). 

> Another thing I'm curious - is the tracker "scene" still alive? Are
> people composing new MODs, listening to them, etc.? Is there a good site
> you recommend for downloading MODs from? I have to admit its been (many)
> years since I last listened to one.

Well, people are still composing new module files (though usually they
are in newer formats such as .IT and .XM , rather than the old .MOD format
which is limited and tends to have a lesser sound quality), though I don't
know if as much as they used to. I'm still listening to MOD files and
downloading some new ones when I'm in the mood, and assume some other people
also do that.

For downloading Module files, I like http://modarchive.org/ , and you can find
an older (and less organised) collection on Aminet (the Amiga Network) -
http://aminet.net/ , which has several mirrors.

In addition to all that, I have been maintaining a list of some of my favourite
modules here - 
http://www.shlomifish.org/Iglu/shlomif/mods/ . One of them had been created by my friend
and me back in high school: http://www.shlomifish.org/art/#music , and is the
only MOD file I have created up to now.

An anecdote about MOD files is that one of them that only featured the standard
Microsoft Windows sounds was featured here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsU3B0W3TMs

It's pretty good.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
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My opinions may seem crazy but they all make sense. Insane sense, but sense
nonetheless.

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