[LAD] Linux Audio 2012: Is Linux Audio moving forward?

[J. Liles]

On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 1:24 AM, Louigi Verona <louigi.verona at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hey fellas!
>
> Would like to present an article I've written. Mostly wrote it to start a
> conversation and hear what others have to say on the subject.
>
>
> http://www.louigiverona.ru/?page=projects&s=writings&t=linux&a=linux_progress
>
> You can comment here or on my textboard (which does not require
> registration).
>
>
Seems like a pretty negative outlook overall. Progress has definitely been
slower than many of us would like, but that's understandable considering
that most Linux Audio programs are maintained by single developers (with
lots of other projects) or small groups. I'm surprised you didn't mention
Luppp, libmapper, or the resurgence of ZynAddSubFX developement. I think
the KXStudio project represents a *huge* amount of progress as far as
integration and user experience goes.

My personal frustration with Linux Audio is mainly focused on the
seemlingly iron-clad (but flawed) JACK API. We've needed the ability to
rename clients and have ports with arbitrary event payloads (to allow MIDI,
OSC, or whatever other streams to be managed via the JACK connection graph
and frame clock) for years. And, even though many proposals have been made
and patches submitted, it doesn't look like the JACK API is ever going to
be improved--which doesn't speak well at all for the future of modular
audio on Linux (such improvements are unnecessary for monolithic
applications such as Ardour since they duplicate all this functionality
internally) . If an API is going to be fixed and rigid, it must also be
extensible (like LV2).

Still, I remain committed to improving Linux Audio and generally optimistic
about the future.
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