19 May
2009
19 May
'09
1:41 p.m.
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 9:49 AM, alex stone <compose59(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This is, i believe, at the heart of the problem.
As a user looking in from the outside, it appears odd that the pulse
team didn't jump onboard with jack,
"they" (i.e. Lennart) know all about JACK. JACK and Pulse superfically
some similarities ("sound server") but at a deeper level have almost
diametrically opposed goals. JACK is focused on low latency, realtime
performance, with a bias towards music creation and pro-audio
applications. Pulse is focused on ease of integration with legacy
APIs, network transparency and low power consumption.
these goals *might* be unifiable, but nobody involved was willing to
work that hard at doing so. JACK does what it does very well, and
Pulse does what it does quite well. they do not do the same thing.
Making them do the same thing would compromise both goals.
and before somebody notes that CoreAudio does all of this with one API:
* CoreAudio is a mandatory audio API on OS X, so every app uses it
and there are no legacy APIs to support
* CoreAudio does not support network transparency out of the box
(3rd party products are required)
* CoreAudio's design is friendly to low power consumption but not
as friendly as Pulse
A linux dev recently remarked to me that the politics
of linux was a
hindrance to progress.
I'm beginning to understand why he said it.
Its not politics. Its the lack of politics. There are no leaders with
any power to enforce any decisions. There is no police authority to
identify people who fail to comply with "joint decisions". There is no
justice system to punish or expel those who do. This is an anarchistic
meritocracy, and yes, its harder to get system infrastructure
developed in this environment than in a system like windows or OS X
where a single person can say "it shall be thus". thats good, and its
bad.