> care: picking up portable language, writing portable code, choosing > libraries etc. that are available for different platform etc. (not that > portability should be the only reason to choose tools, all I say is that > it > should be taken into account)
The problem I originally had with your statement is due to fact that this consideration had already taken place, at least in this discussion. Do you really believe that OSS originally simultaneously came out on all platforms it currently supports? Of course not! The cross-platform portability of OSS is a result of a long-term evolution, which has now gotten to a point where architecture has reached its limits and it is time for us to move on to a better audio API, which currently is not available on all platforms, but as you have already seen on this board, there are already people who have successfully compiled it on mac's, and I believe it would probably not be so hard to port it to other platforms (except for building the low-level end of the audio hw drivers). Sometimes you have to make a leap sacrificing some features that came about through prolonged usage of the previous API (such as cross-platform portability), and in return get a much better foundation for the future development. So, in that sense Alsa would be a "caring" decision because it would allow everybody to [eventually] switch to an API that will provide them with better performance and more flexibility. Besides, try to name any other OS that is "caring" by your definition (and that we should, in return, care about): Mac and Win definitely aren't. Solaris, SGI, neither of these have until very recently provided anything monumental to the Linux community, other than had source code available (mostly from the non-profit endeavors of individuals i.e. Mxv) which then allowed Linux users (or the original makers) to port their code and/or use their solutions in the Linux OS, which has nothing to do with cross-compatibility, other than using C/C++. Will the switch-over be cross-platform portable initially? Of course not! But if you look retrospectively at the beginnings of OSS, you'd realize that they do not differ that much from Alsa's. Thus, your concern about portability is completely unnecessary. So please stop beating the dead issue into the ground. Apologies to all other list's members for cluttering your inbox... Ico
