Tim Hockin wrote: not exactly requirements, but thinking about ladspa and jack lead me to a couple of important meta-features for every new killer API: technical: * it should be elegant, or even beautiful * it should be fun to program with * as an extra bonus, it should be easier than programming on a lower level (as with jack vs. alsa) * it *must* be easy to support in host applications * it *must not* force any particular choice of toolkit or language upon the implementer of either the host or the plugin * it should work ok right now, instead of being perfect never social: * it must be free without loopholes (bsd or lgpl) * specs and sdk must be available free-of-charge * the surrounding community must be hospitable towards non-professional developers * both the licensing and the community atmosphere should not discourage closed-source commercial implementations while still conveying enough "free spirit" to make commercial vendors play fair and participate in or even donate something back to the community i have not followed gmpi at all, and some of these points may not be applicable. but they are what puts the "yeeeeeeeeehah!" factor in today's linux audio, and have definitely lifted our community to a level where almost everything is possible. best, jörn -- Progress (n.): The process through which the Internet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals. - stolen from Steve Meuse's sig Jörn Nettingsmeier Kurfürstenstr 49, 45138 Essen, Germany http://spunk.dnsalias.org (my server) http://www.linuxdj.com/audio/lad/ (Linux Audio Developers)