No subject

(at least to some degree), or determining compatibility should be as
simple as possible (ie. plugin says level 3 and host says level 4 - so
the plugin will work well in that host). Musicians aren't necessarily
technically-minded, and some stuff, even simple to us, may simply scare
them off, just because it *seems* complex :)

Test suite must happen at some point - I might do some work for that
too. It doesn't have to be something big, in simplest case it would just
be a set of short programs/plugins full of asserts :)

> Also testing imposes kind of certification, i.e. work that IMHO
> should be done by packager. see below...

Certification is the possible next step, but not a requirement. The test
suite is basically designed to help devs write correct code, not to
force them to do so. Encouraging them to do so is more of reputation
thing (if someone writes buggy plugins, he will be complained to on
mailing lists, irc channels, and his work won't be included in
distributions etc).

I think whether it will be open or closed source is irrelevant - the
main goal of the compliance level is a helpful, structured development
process, where:

1) compliance bugs are caught before the plugin is released, eliminating
the problem of buggy plugins in circulation (unless the developers don't
use the test suite at all, but then it's either their bad decision that
will cost them reputation or bad test suite that will cost me reputation)

2) host authors are encouraged to add features in a predictable order
(they can always add level 4 features without level 2, but then they
can't brag about level 2 compliance)

3) when - say - 100% of hosts support level 1, 50% of hosts support
level 2 and 25% of hosts support level 3, the plugin authors would first
want to make use of level 2 additions, then level 3 additions etc -
basically, concentrate on this kind of work that makes the most of end
users happy with them (as in: what's the point of doing level 4
additions when no host does level 4 - except for doing it for fun)

Of course, I'm not saying the model would always be used - just it would
be the expected case the audio scene could (hopefully) slowly converge to.

Krzysztof