[Jack-Devel] JACK1's Future?

Stéphane Letz letz at grame.fr
Tue Sep 13 16:16:40 CEST 2016


A note about JackRouter : this week-end I tried to better understand how the new AudioServerPlugIn model is working (this replaces the old AudioHardwarePlugIn model that was used for JackRouter). It happens that all AudioServerPlugIn plugins now run in the context of the « coreaudiod » OS X audio server (AudioHardwarePlugIn were running in the context of the loading CoreAudio application) . AudioServerPlugIn then appears as audio devices to be used by CoreAudio application.

Using this model, the guys at Rogue Amoeba where able to develop the LoopBack application/Plugin that somewhat allows Audio IAC in a way similar to JACK (but without a central server AFAICS)

https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/

So I was wondering if the JACK server itself could be loaded in coreaudiod process with this AudioServerPlugIn model, then be accessible by CoreAudio applications with a redesigned JackRouter plugin. A question that is not clear yet is how the JACK/AudioServerPlugIn would access the real audio hardware from coreaudiod context. The AudioServerPlugIn documentation says that the is not possible, since the regular CoreAudio API is not usable from there... but obviously Apple is able to do that for their own purpose (since  coreaudiod is actually the connection between the CoreAudio applications *and* the hardware), and the Rogue AmoebaLoopBack stuff do a similar thing.

Technically JACK2 server code was designed to be loadable in this kind of use case with the libjackserver library… Could be tried at least, and could possibly be a better design compared to Captain Jack as far as I understand  Captain Jack model...

Stéphane




> Le 13 sept. 2016 à 15:55, Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> a écrit :
> 
> Once I get my current burst effort on Ardour's (broken) MIDI looping done, I'll make it a priority to do my final JACK release and hand over to Filipe.
> 
> The background on Captain Jack's design sounds horrendous (thanks, Apple).
> 
> On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 2:30 PM, Josh de Kock <josh at itanimul.li> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Back in January/February at the start of this year, Paul announced that he would be stepping down, and he requested that someone would stand for being the new maintainer.
> 
> As far as I know, this didn't happen, up until Filipe Coelho(?) offered to maintain JACK1. After speaking with Paul around March, he said that once Ardour 5.0 was released he would do the final release of JACK1 and then hand over maintainership.
> 
> There are a few pull requests on the GitHub, some of which are critical to the core functionality of JACK1, like the patch for OSX which begins to modernise JACK1's usages of the CoreAudio APIs (while still maintaining backward compatibility).
> 
> I'd like to help the JACK community in getting OSX support up-to-scratch. There is a promising project called CaptainJack (https://github.com/Qix-/CaptainJack) which aims to be a modern replacement for JackOSX, which is a vital part of the JACK ecosystem within OSX. While it is just a start, it shows there is at least some interest.
> 
> My question to the community is: Should an effort be put in to revive JACK1?
> 
> And to Paul; I know it's only been a little over a month since 5.0 was released, but is it possible you could do this 'final release' of JACK1 soon so we can get the ball rolling again, or at least give some sort of time-frame on when this can be achieved.
> 
> I personally think there should be an effort, the main issue at this time is how the clients are sorted, and there is a patch for this. I would be willing to step forward to fix all the issues related to OSX, and reattempt integration of Fons' topological sort patch. In addition to this, JACK1 is a good code-base, albeit slightly outdated, which makes a great reference implementation for JACK3.
> 
> --
> 
> Josh
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