[linux-audio-dev] Call for participation: MMA GMPI working group

[David Olofson]

On Tuesday 11 February 2003 11.37, Steve Harris wrote:
[...]
> I'd guess that us Free Software types are going to want a more
> strict definition of "licence free" ;), so can I suggest we argue
> amongst ourselves about what we'd like in the way of licencing
> before spamming the list.

Well, one thing I consider *very* important is the management of 
Unique IDs. MIDI SysEx and DLS IDs are *not* free in any way, so the 
only reason MIDI can be considered Free is that you can do a lot of 
stuff with MIDI without having your own IDs. Inded, a Free/Open 
Source MIDI application *could* have it's own IDs if someone cares to 
pay for them annually - but what happens when payments stop...?

With plugins, IDs are no longer optional, so claiming that the 
standard is Free would obviously be ridiculous if a similar 
registration system was used.

Anyway, I'd propose that IDs are separated into two parts; 
Manufacturer ID (globally registered) and Product ID (managed by 
manufacturers individually).

If this makes someone nervous about too many Free implementations 
eating the ID space or something, make each field 32 bits, and/or 
reserve part of the range for paying manufacturers, or whatever.


[...]
> ** except TDM and hardware accelerated VST, and modulo obove

Hardware accelerated VST plugins just serve as interfaces to their DSP 
hardware, like a driver, basically. They still run in the audio 
thread of the host, using process() (as usual) to deliver data, and 
an additional polling call for the host to find out when the output 
is ready. That is, it's not a separation, but rather a low level 
feature for the DSP part of plugins.


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

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