[LAD] New proposal for the jackd/jackdbus mess

Hi all,

New much simplified proposal, should be "Fons compatible", hopefully
"Nedko compatible" (with little work), "Paul one package only
compatible", others "keep it simple compatible"...

The first "big" conceptual change compared to the current SVN state is
this new "control IPC" scheme. That is the so called control API can
be used on client side also. The other conceptual change is that
"jackd" process is supposed to be an "always running" daemon that
defines an IPC entry point to be used from "clients". This daemon does
not "automatically" starts the server (as it does now), but will when
requested (either by the "jackd" code directly using C API ) or by the
request of external control font-end using IPC.

1) Server side:

- libjackserver.so contains: server code + C control API + "new" IPC
control API (server side) + C Jack API + IPC Jack API (server side)

- jackd executable is linked with libjackserver.so (nothing new here)

- backends (ALSA, dummy...) are linked with libjackserver.so (nothing
new here)

- a "standalone" client (that wants to embed the server in it's
process) is linked with libjackserver.so and directly uses the C
control API to control/start the server and C Jack API to be a client
(nothing new here).

2) Client side:

- libjack.so contains : "new" IPC control API (client side) + IPC
Jack API (client side)

- clients are linked to libjack.so (nothing new here)

- new control front-end (jackdbus, jackOSC...) are linked to
libjack.so: they control the server using the IPC control API (client
side), they can be regular clients using IPC Jack API (client side) to
deal with connections management and so on...

- a "default" centralized state for the server is always kept in ~/
jackdrc. When a client wants to auto-start, this "default" state is
used. (this is important to keep in mind)

- libjack may have to start the "jackd" executable using the fork+exec
way, or the "jackd" process is an "always running + relaunch" process
(this has to be more defined later on...)

- Qjakctl stays as a regular client, it can still start the "jackd"
process as usual. It can keep its own way of keeping multiple
configurations as it does now.

- more sophisticated control front-end (jackdbus, jackOSC...) are now
regular clients. They can use the IPC control API (client side) for
more sophisticated control of the server. As regular clients, they
access the API to control connections... and so on. The important
thing is that those clients are *obliged* to deal with this "default"
centralized state. Even if they deal with multiple configs in a new
format (XML...) they are supposed to always put a "default" state in
~/jackdrc for the client "auto-start" feature to continue working.

- Ardour can still do it's server control mess on its own... ((-:

3) General:

- a single jack2 package is needed. It contains the "jackd" daemon/
server are before.

- "jackdbus" is now conceptually separated from the Jack source code.
It only uses jack.h + control.h and is linked to libjack.so as any
regular client. It can be distributed separately as a more
sophisticated control front-end available, or be available in the
jack2 package.

- old fashion users can keep their habits

- new "D-Bus aware" guys can explore new fields...

This scheme seems to hopefully solve most of the problems we had, and
requires only a bit of change for the "jackdbus" front-end to continue
working, but not much.

Comments?

Stephane

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