[lsb-discuss] PulseAudio and LSB 4.0 I think it should be pulled completely.

[Peter Dolding]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 4:30 AM, Theodore Tso <tytso at mit.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 12:45:50AM +1000, Peter Dolding wrote:
>> >
>> > The only multimedia API we will be supporting in LSB 4 will be ALSA.
>> >
>> http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/ProjectPlan40  << Then why is it on this page.
>
> It was listed as a potential idea when we were putting to gether the
> list of all possible things to consider for LSB 4.0.  It was
> prioritized as low priority, and at this point it's not going to
> happen.  We just never got around to updating the page.  At this
> point, though none of the Low priority items are slated to be done for
> LSB 4.0, and nearly all of the medium priority items are unlikely to
> happen as well.
>
>
> As far as your concern about the audio API's; I agree the massive
> amount of fragmentation is highly unfortunate.  I am sure that I don't
> know for certain what the right approach should be, and it probably
> behooves us to wait until we see what approach everyone settles on
> before we make any kind of standardization attempts in this space.
>
The critical thing is.   People have for years just taken the method.
Ok something is broken in OSS or ALSA don't fix them but create a
sound server that does them.

All bar Jackaudio and NMM are just ALSA + 3 or 4 new features that
could have been fused into ALSA.  Or some cases less features then
ALSA.

Yes I know ALSA API's and Documentation and so on need a clean up.
Its one of the core APIs that we cannot get rid of.   So allowing
stuff that gets developers out of fixing it is really not a valid
thing to be doing.  ISV's need good ALSA documentation and good API's
so they can code good ALSA applications.   LSB needs to land hard on
getting what needs doing done.

Also this sound server onto of sound server is just causing high cpu
and ram use to avoid lag.

Jackaudio and NMM might be the only sound servers out there with any
grounds on complexity to exist.   Even then not sure if ALSA was
truely cleaned up not even it might need to exist.

Line in the sand over this issue has to be drawn somewhere.
Distributions should have drawn it years ago.

Basically all that should exist FFADO Alsa OSS Jackaudio NMM Helix
Gstreamer and Phonon.

Note NMM is different to pulse because it is integrated video audio.
That can plug straight into phonon as a media framework doing decoding
and all.   So its really 3 driver systems 1 sound system for
specialist Audio people and 3 media frameworks one just happens to be
integrated with a sound server.  With Phonon if its good enough there
is no real reason why we could not drop the 3 media frameworks and
Jackaudio from the LSB as well.   Reducing the complete audio
interface to 4 API's.   This kinda of limitation of API's is needed
for the good of Linux.  Forces working on common API's.  Also reduces
development time.

If we can get alsa correctly sorted out there is no reason why OSS
could not disappear from the LSB in time.   This is all about getting
down to the min number of API's.  But still leaving the door open to
features,

Sound server makers need to be told clearly the way is shut for them
to enter LSB because they have no place in the API any more.  Its
about the only way we can clean it up.  We need to get resources from
sound servers and into ALSA and OSS the driver systems where they need
to be.

Peter Dolding