On Sunday 31 July 2005 07:04, hanaghan@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > (snip) > > This thread has not come about because LAU desperately needs KDE. It has > > come about because the audio professionals in your Linux familiy see an > > opportunity to move the Linux environment forward in an area where it > > currently lags and languishes in indecision and neglect. KDE can choose > > to say "We're not interested," but that will only push the problem on > > for the next group which comes to a major rearchitecting. But, sooner or > > later, the issues will be addressed -- or this environment will wither. > > I'm convinced it's that fundamental--but that's another email. The only > > question for KDE is whether they want to be leaders or followers. > (snip-done) Very well put, thanks. This is indeed the question I hope the core KDE multumedia devs contemplate. Like I mentioned, once some non-JACK based system is decided upon then it's all over and only fragmented retrofits will be available after that. I can well imagine the "KDE" focus of the previous thread would irritate the Gnome, and otherwise, folks but the point is that if one of the 2 main desktop systems get a chance to explore a "deeper" and "better" sound susb-system then the other will benefit as a co-absorber of any positive results without going through the exploratory development pain. > ... By that I > mean should the nature of open source be the driver in Linux audio and > leave it such that there a *many* options (applications) for you to do the > same job but none of them really "talk" to each other well or play nice > together. should more cohesive methods of application development be > created? It's all about standards. Look at the world of disparate web browsers from various open and closed sources... they all mostly work with most web pages remarkably well. Anyone can point out the exceptions where this analogy falls apart but that "they all work" is by dar the greater attribute. Why ? Extensive W3C and IETF standards. > ... > If you will indulge me, I want to know > what makes you spend the time you do on this stuff so guys like me can > pilfer legally and freely your hard works and then subsequently bitch at > random about how it doesn't work! :) You make it sound like a one way street all about the developer(s). A "project" cannot survive without users. If users do not use the software the developers are sweating over then that software project will go nowhere and die. Every bit as much as us users leach the efforts of developers is the developers need us as users or else their efforts will come to nothing... they also need to pay homage to their userbase... or another project, that does so, will succeed in the long term and their baby will not. > ... > Personally, I don't think it can or should be done in large scale...but > the "low hanging fruit" in this topic could generate some interesting > perspective. And as the originating topic demonstrates, there certainly > seems to be conflicting conceptual opinion between development groups in > different corners of the OS in general... There are so few documented "standards" in our open source audio world that there is no, or very little, glue to bind us all. Somehow "fixing" this issue will, I believe, sort out a lot of a the other issues you raise. --markc
