Subject: RE: [linux-audio-dev] Linux Audio plugin API's: where are we ?
From: David Olofson (david_AT_gardena.net)
Date: Wed Apr 05 2000 - 01:43:14 EEST
On Sun, 02 Apr 2000, Richard W.E. Furse wrote:
> Hmm - yes, good thinking. LADSPA is a bad set of initials for a system that
> is becoming less simplistic - and LADPA sounds silly and potentially
> confusing!
>
> Perhaps the thing to do is to rename your project (MuCoS sounds alright to
> me - what does David think?)
Well, in some ways, it's more like MuCoS, but it's important to keep
in mind that there are some fundamental differences between the
current LADPA design and the pre-LADSPA MuCoS idea, that I'm now
returning to. I don't think a plugin API where the event system is
optional is feasible, as that wastes a great deal of the advantages
of both systems. Even if both variants use the same basic structures,
the two kinds of plugins will work in quite different ways, both from
the plugin POV and from the host POV.
> and include in the header something along the
> lines of "this API is a [backward-compatible?]
Possible, I'd guess. (Compare to the optional datatype descriptor
table pointer of my proposal - a LADSPA plugin would just look like a
LADPA plugin with only float ports, ie a null descriptor table
pointer.)
> extension of the LADSPA
> plugin API (version 1), Copyright <etc>, available from
> http://www.muse.demon.co.uk/ladspa.html."
>
> Does this sound sane?
Yes, but I'm not sure about the names... I'm thinking about a low
level unit generator plugin API evpecially designed for MuCoS, but
usable as a stand-alone plugin API, and that one would probably look
a lot like LAD(S)PA. The multiple data types support is a
requirement, but of course, it should be simple to compile plugins
for some default data type, and not worry about it. Hosts still have
to support it, of course, but they may ignore the simple API and
support only MuCoS, and use a wrapper plugin for running the "unit
generators".
Anyway, it's too early for me to say exactly what the MuCoS "unit
generator" API will look like, or if it'll even exist as a part of the
MuCoS API. It might be a good idea to just get on with the projects
currently in existence (LADSPA, LADPA, MuCoS) - if nothing else, just
to give all these ideas some testing as actual implementations.
I'm drowning in all kinds of work, but the MuCoS plugin API is pretty
clear in my head now... Hopefully, I'll get around to hack it before
some other major issue makes me rethink the design again.
//David
.- M u C o S --------------------------------. .- David Olofson ------.
| A Free/Open Multimedia | | Audio Hacker |
| Plugin and Integration Standard | | Linux Advocate |
`------------> http://www.linuxdj.com/mucos -' | Open Source Advocate |
.- A u d i a l i t y ------------------------. | Singer |
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