>problem of the hosts not completly implementing everything that is >supported by ladspa (until recently, i didn't know about this rdf >thingy, for instance.)
that isn't actually part of LADSPA. its an example of the extreme ease of adding wrappers and new layers to LADSPA precisely because it represents the lowest common denominator for an audio plugin API. >On the other hand, i think it's not realy the question what api we use >for modules. (well, a common api wouldn't hurt ;-) ) >As i said, i think the real difficult problem would be defining that >comon model. Maybe what jack does is closer to it. there actually isn't really any commonality between what, say, pd versus beast do. or between jMax and gAlan. the similarity exists only on an abstract conceptual plane, which is where algorithms live. however software isn't abstract - its always instantiated. the problem here, i think, is that we look at different systems, note their abstract conceptual similarities and wonder why they need to both exist when they appear so similar. yet they are not similar as software, only as ideas. and its the software that is being worked on - the ideas were worked out years ago - and its the software that is where the fun is. >But from the users point of view, things look different. Just look at >this kde<->gnome situation. I'm seeing myself as a rather a user than a >developer when it comes to desktop envirements, and i definitly would >like a _realy_ integrated desktop. I don't know much about the issues >they have there, nore do i care that much. i've said many times before: i don't believe that "the desktop" is something that developers of "music" apps should concern themselves with. "the desktop" is neither the source nor sink for almost any of the data that we manipulate, and the UI/HCI abstractions and models that we use are often very different (for good reasons) from those used by apps that deal primarily with data lacking any temporal dimension. i think we should focus on writing good applications that are independent of what a "desktop" does. >And if you think of it, the situation with all those modular synth apps the situation is no different to the one in the h/w world. i don't hear anyone suggesting that doepfer should quit because moog is making modular stuff again, or even that they should work together. there are probably at least a half-dozen companies doing this today - should they all sit down and work out how to make their stuff interoperable beyond a 12V/octave standard?
