[linux-audio-dev] XAP: Some thoughts on control ramping

[Steve Harris]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 10:00:13PM +0100, David Olofson wrote:
> As to AU, I think the use of Objective C is a serious obstacle. I 
> also dislike the way they handle scheduling, and the general lack of 
> consideration for API overhead... But that's another topic!

I dont know that much about AU. I like objective C, but it has some
performace issues. In some ways it would make sense for linux to support
it, it would make porting plugins between MacOS X and Linux easier,
especially if you can make X11 guis for it.

Is it possible to read teh specs without becoming tainted?

> That sounds mutually exclusive to me. The owner of the recommended 
> standard would have to give up control to a group or standards body, 
> and well, if the rest of them are anything like Steinberg, it just 
> won't happen. (Though, people actually change their minds *before* 
> all is lost, occasionally.)

This has happened with Apple in the past, and I belive that AU is the most
"modern" of the plugin APIs.
 
> On a similar note, what if someone *wants* to destroy XAP and LADSPA, 
> and deploys an embrace and extend attack on them? I think we'd better 
> state that forked projects must not use the original prefixes, or 
> something... Though, we can't prevent people from reimplementing 
> LADSPA or XAP, thus bypassing that requirement.

I'm not sure you could do that while retaining the GPL.
 
> Well, both views are motivated. In some ways, a totally generic, 
> portable "do it all" plugin API seems doable, but OTOH, looking at 
> the number of features that everyone wants in it, one can't help 
> being worried that the size of the SDK will be on par with that of 
> XFree86. ;-)

Yep, a big, bloaty API is my biggest fear.
 
> Which is why I won't bother selling closed source software. I'd much 
> rather have a few people sending patches, than a bunch of paying 
> customers complaining about the effects my software has on their 
> dogs, and whatnot. ;-)

Hell yeah, if I released closed source I'd have to do my own beta
testing ;)
 
> BTW, that's rather interesting, put in relation to the number of 
> Linux audio hackers as well. How many and how long does it *really* 
> take to create a complete Linux based studio solution?

Bizarrely, I think we actually spend more time reinventing the wheel than
the commercial guys. We have a lot of low level library reuse, but
everyone and his dog wants to write a WAV editor. Theres also a shortage
of maths, electronics and graphic design skills compared to commercial
developers (for plugins at least).

- Steve