[LAD] Just an information about the state of affairs - Re: forking (was Re: Aeolus)

Fons Adriaensen fons at linuxaudio.org
Mon Sep 23 16:51:59 UTC 2013


On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 02:18:58AM -0400, Tim E. Real wrote:
 
> Yikes! I had no idea that old 2006 page was there.
> I could not figure out how to get to it from our pages.
> But typing Aeolus into Google, lo and behold - there's /our/ page
>  at the very top of the Google results. 
> I've CC'd just to see what Robert and Joachim think.

Please explain why musescore refers to a webpage that was closed six
years ago (when I moved to Italy), while the code that is on github
is of more recent date and can't have come from that site. Do you
want to create the impression that Aeolus is no longer maintained ?

> Anyway, question:
> How hard would it be to make Aeolus available as a plugin like DSSI, 
>  LV2 or LinuxVST, or... WinVST?

That is not going to happen. There is no reason why Aeolus should be
a plugin, functionally it is perfectly usable on its own and it doesn't
need anything hosting it. You could as well ask for Ardour3 as a plugin.

If you want to use Aeolus to render your scores, all you need to do
is send the midi data. I assume that musescore can send midi to
external (hardware) synths ? Then it can do the same with Aeolus.

> Plugins are preferred over external apps - no added latency.

That is a bogus argument. Aeolus actually *adds* latency (configurable
per stop, to emulate distance). And a score player can easily compensate
for any unwanted latency, just send the midi data a configurable time
ahead.

> When no plugin is available, one resorts to quickly hacking up an 
>  embedded version of some cool app. It tends to grow from there.

Moving a bunch of non-trivial apps into a single process is technically
a very dubious approach. Nor is it necessary. It's trivially easy to
launch on app from another, make the necessary connections, and send
the commands to setup the external app as you want. If anything is
missing to make that work, it could be added.

In the case of Aeolus, the GUI is a plugin chosen at run time, and it
talks to the DSP code only via asynchronous messages. The only thing
you would need to do is write an alternative plugin that sends the
same message over e.g. a socket, and you can control the entire thing,
including saving and recalling state, from within your app.

> Let us host Aeolus some day. Be our guest!

What I've seen so far is rather Borg style assimilation (*) rather
than 'being a guest'. I decline that sort of hospitality.

The GPL allows you to use the code of the current release. If you
cripple it in the way you apparently want to, then you shouldn't
call the result 'Aeolus', or even pretend it is an organ emulator.

Ciao,

-- 
FA

(*) Assuming you're familiar with Star Trek biodiversity.

A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)



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