From owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jan 15 18:10:25 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C16316A4CE for ; Sat, 15 Jan 2005 18:10:25 +0000 (GMT) Received: from deluge.cc.mcgill.ca (deluge.CC.McGill.CA [132.206.27.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 863BB43D2F for ; Sat, 15 Jan 2005 18:10:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mat@cnd.mcgill.ca) Received: from mailscan1.cc.mcgill.ca (mailscan1.CC.McGill.CA [132.216.77.248]) by deluge.cc.mcgill.ca (8.12.11/8.12.3) with ESMTP id j0FIA8eI014089; Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:10:08 -0500 (EST) Received: from cube.cnd.mcgill.ca (cube.cnd.McGill.CA [132.216.11.165]) j0FI9kQL028812; Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:09:47 -0500 (EST) Received: from cube.cnd.mcgill.ca (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by cube.cnd.mcgill.ca (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id j0FI9kfs012792; Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:09:46 -0500 Received: (from mat@localhost) by cube.cnd.mcgill.ca (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id j0FI9gvm012791; Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:09:42 -0500 Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:09:42 -0500 From: Mathew Kanner To: Julian Elischer Message-ID: <20050115180942.GA12541@cnd.mcgill.ca> References: <41E583BD.5080900@elischer.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <41E583BD.5080900@elischer.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2i Organization: I speak for myself, operating in Montreal, CANADA cc: multimedia@freebsd.org Subject: Re: audio code maintainers, A call to arms X-BeenThere: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Multimedia discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 18:10:25 -0000 On Jan 12, Julian Elischer wrote: > Firstly, Who is curently maintaining it? > Orion Hodson seems to have become scarce. > (If you are reading this Orion and I've just missed you, sorry). > I saw cg (Cameron Grant) on the lists the other day, but I > am not sure who is currently the contact man for sound. > let me know if you know :-) > If you want the job, speak up :-) > The there is MIDI... > > Kazuhito HONDA (kazuhito@ph.noda.tus.ac.jp) > has been doing some work on the USB audio code > and has agreed to act as contact/maintainer for that as > it seems to be currently unloved. Hi Julian, First, I guess I owe an apology to the list and to freebsd in general for dragging my feet on MIDI. The stunning silence is incredibly demotivating to me. Over the many months think I've had one positive response to my work (it works!) and one negative (does not compile for non-i386, printf qualifiers). I never expected to be in a vacuum. Then again, I'm one of those sensitive types. I'm committed to getting this done, it basically works, but I need to be kicked around when I start loosing momentum. But MIDI isn't FreeBSD problem. We've been stagnant in sound infrastructure, both in the human and software sense. Other projects have continued along without us. We don't have anybody that really understands the sound infrastructure, esp given that locking was an after thought that makes things infinitely more complex. (BTW, Orion gave up his commit bit about a year ago, due to an increase in demand on his time, a baby) To me, the worse aspect is that new people are scared off either by the perceived complexity issues or general unwillingness of the powers that be to accept a new direction. To move forward we need to: - Get a new sound team. I don't know how to go about this, maybe a general call to arms, or an appointment from core or maybe a guillotine backed revolution. - Set a list of priorities and start working on them. I see the major TODO items: - Review this list - Figure out which PR are still applicable, close the rest. - Move forward with features, other projects have far surpassed us. To me the most glaring difference is that we are stuck with a simplistic view of "Mixers" and cannot export the sophisticated controls that present days devices contain. NetBSD, ALSA, that commercial project have all taken this on. We could embellish or just plain drop our mixer support while keeping what was good from newpcm2 - Or, just port the NetBSD sound infrastructure. Sometimes, when I'm depressed, I look into the feasibility of this. So there it is. How wants to be part of freebsd sound? Many open positions, but the pay sucks. --Mat