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

[David Olofson]

On Tuesday 21 January 2003 22.57, Steve Harris wrote:
> 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.

Well, AU doesn't deal with GUIs at all, AFAIK. Porting it to Linux 
should be doable, I guess, but I'm afraid the situation is rather 
similar to that with VST; most plugins depend heavily on either 
platform specific stuff, or proprietary technology for their GUIs.


> Is it possible to read teh specs without becoming tainted?

Well, at least you don't have to sign an NDA to read it, but other 
than that, it would be the usual copyright stuff, basically - but 
IANAL.


[...]
> > 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.

I don't think we can prevent someone from creating binary compatible 
hosts or plugins using their own headers instead of ours. As long as 
we can't prove they just copied our work, and then extended and/or 
changed it, we can't do anything about it, I think.


[...]
> > 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.

It's not that strange, really. We just do what we like best most of 
the time, and that generally means hacking away on various little 
projects that we find interesting. Whether they're useful or Yet 
Another <whatever> is secondary to most hackers. And of course, "I 
can do it much better!" (although no one would admit ever thinking 
that ;-), and running your own project is more fun.


> Theres
> also a shortage of maths, electronics and graphic design skills
> compared to commercial developers (for plugins at least).

Yeah... The ones that are truly interested do *only* DSP hacking, and 
the rest generally don't deal with audio at all. Besides, even if you 
have other skills than hacking, hacking just takes too much of your 
time. GUI design and graphics aren't things hackers in general spend 
much time on, be there artistic potential or not.


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

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