On Tue, 2011-02-22 at 19:48 +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 07:32:58PM +0100, Nick Copeland wrote:
> >
> > > X11 hides the hardware and allows the app to be independent of it, just as do
> > > Jack for audio, sockets for networking, etc. Do you suggest that I should not
> > > use Jack or sockets because e.g. Windows doesn't have them (natively) ?
> >
> > Actually yes, I am suggesting you don't use Jack or Sockets if you want your app to be
> > well written and portable.
> > ...
> > No, Fons, you are mixing things up. Most systems do not even run X servers. Most
> > systems don't even run *nix.
>
> OK, let's make a few thing clear. I write for Linux. This list
> is called "Linux Audio Developers". I don't care a second if my
> apps are not portable to OSX, windows, or whatever you like.
Portability is an explicit goal of LV2 for obvious reasons.
You are free to implement a particular host or plugin only for a
particular platform, but making the spec itself non-portable is just
straight up crap design with no benefit. It's silly to argue otherwise.
That portability is a necessary goal for a successful audio plugin API
is self-evident. You don't personally care? That's nice. Speaking of
things people don't care about... ;)
In other words, "I don't care about portability" is a valid perspective
for an implementer. It's (worse than) worthless noise in a conversation
about plugin interface design. Portability will not hurt you whatsoever,
but it will increase adoption of LAD technology. Do you have any actual
argument against it?
As far as I am concerned, this is all about Libre audio software anyway,
and I disagree with the name of this list/site (who actually cares about
the specific kernel?). Getting e.g. OSX people on board is a part of
making the LAD 'platorm' a success. If people on proprietary platforms
start using free plugins, and they start using free hosts, eventually
they're using free everything (e.g. a Jack/LV2 based music platform) and
that's when they can switch to Lignux. Otherwise, they simply won't, and
that is obviously not a win for LAD, Linux, Open Source, GNU, Free
Software, or whatever label you prefer to rally behind.
Maybe you don't care. Fine. You're obviously not the person to be
designing our plugin API, then.
Old persnickety grey-bearded UNIX administrators aren't exactly a
significant or compelling market for music software. Perhaps for you and
me, using Lignux is a given, and doing music stuff is something you may
want to tinker with. For the overwhelmingly vast majority of people who
use music software, it is the other way around.
Put simply:
"I don't care about portability" == "Nobody cares about my software".
-dr
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Received on Wed Feb 23 00:15:04 2011
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