Re: More fun with sound (was GNOME CVS: libgnome martin)

[Joe Shaw <joe ximian com>]

On 09 Aug 2001 20:13:41 -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> I don't see why we have to "bless" something before we are ready; apps
> that want sound now can pick the esound lib or CSL or as they like, 
> and then once we see a clear de facto standard or really do our
> homework, we can "bless" one in GNOME 2.0.1 or 2.2 or whatever is
> appropriate at the time.

Ugg. One of the nice things I remember about esd (way back when I used
it) is that it did mixing for you, since a lot of cards couldn't do it
in hardware. Many still can't. That way if I were listening to oggs in
xmms I could still hear the bing bong when I got some email. Asking
application developers to pick any old sound API they want sounds like
it'll be a real pain from a support standpoint ("Why can't I play mp3s
while my <insert random application> is running?").

An argument against it, but along the same lines, is we should hold off
so we could play nicely with KDE's sound system if we can, ala the
.desktop format and the window manager spec.

Joe