Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] LADSPA proposal ...
From: Fons Adriaensen (fons.adriaensen_AT_skynet.be)
Date: Sat May 15 2004 - 01:40:58 EEST
On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 02:21:46PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> >> stable library interface. I don't know anyone now who *ever* writes X
> >> protocol code, and I've never met anyone (except a few people I once
> >> knew who worked on a commercial X server, and even that was more than
> >> 15 years ago).
> >
> >This is irrelevant. Xrm has nothing to do with the X protocal, and you can
>
> fons - i wasn't talking about xrm at all. i was referring to the way
> that X encapulsates the X protocol in Xlib, and nobody ever deals with
> the protocol itself. The protocol is the true definition of X, but
> nobody uses it, and with good reason.
OK, good example. But I'm straining myself to find a second one.
And X is something immensely more complicated than a plugin description.
Also, there is not one X client lib but lots of them, and nobody could stop
me if I were foolish enough to write my own...
There's maybe a 'political' motivation behind my point of vieuw: forcing
application writers to use a library to access an otherwise undocumented
interface reminds me too much of some commercial practices that I dislike.
I really feel this goes against the spirit of any open source project.
> >> Its also been a *very* useful approach as JACK has evolved. We have
> >> modified the protocol several times without requiring client
> >> recompilation.
> >
> >This is an API, not a file format.
>
> There is a protocol involved in server/client communication. Its
> isomorphous to a file format.
OK, I see your point. But this is really a protocol that is internal
to JACK and the way JACK is implemented. In the LADSPA context, we are
talking about a file format that is not internal at all - the file
is there for everyone to read or write, and its format is shared
among hundreds of plugins and tens of hosts. And we expect a plugin
author to deliver a file, not an abstraction of it.
That, for me, means that the file format itself is public, and not an
implementation detail.
-- FA
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