Vote for a MM system (Was: Re: summary of the aKademy meetings)

[Allan Sandfeld Jensen]

On Thursday 09 September 2004 02:09, Christian Esken wrote:
> And actually a KDE API is nice for KDE, but totally irrelevant to UNIX in
> general. Yes, we do not even have a generic UNIX MM API - there is no X11
> for sound.
>
>
>
> OK. enough rambling.
>
> So, what do I want to communicate:
> 1) We need an API
> 2) We need an Linux/*NIX API ... starting with the most trivial stuff like
> play(), pause(), ... The API is not perfect? So what? API's can and do
> change. Even after years. There is a X11R6, there is DirectX 9 ... so what?
> Don't dream about doing the perfect API from scratch in 2 months ... that
> is absurd. 3) We need something NOW (waiting another 2 years for somehting
> that might creep up does not make any sense). 4) The API must not impose
> limits on usability on "other" languages. This means, bindings for "other"
> languages should be possible to do without to much hazzle  (e.g. C, C++,
> JNI, any-other-executed-language, possibly also Script-languages like
> Perl). 5) We need to untangle the current mess of 20 different sound
> systems: The first step here is to allow applications to find out which
> soundsystem to use and to allow an easy migration path.
>
> Thus my vote will go to a MM API, that supports a MM backend system that
> fulfills all of the following properties: a) Can NOW play audio and video
> b) Is quite stable (running and API-wise)
> c) Is available NOW
> d) Is available NOW on multiple Operating Systems (at least Linux, Solaris,
> *BSD [preferably FreeBSD] ). e) Is NOW maintained by a large developer base
> f) has an OpenSource license
> g) has an open development mentality (stuff like "open" development lists,
> "open" bug system, ...)
>

You sound exactly like that NMM guy that listed things they did well as the 
base requirements..

Sorry if you want to the equivalent of X for audio, you need 
network-transparency and esd or the polypaudio servers just doesnt cut it. 
Without proper synchonization, they are both silly playthings. 

`Allan