Media Platforms WAS: Re: Gnome Media Library

["Nicholas Francis" <nicholasFrancis iname com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Mo McKinlay <mmckinlay@labs.interopen.org>
To: Derek Simkowiak <dereks@kd-dev.com>
Cc: <gnome-devel-list@gnome.org>; <recipient list not shown: ;>
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 10:18 PM
Subject: Re: Gnome Media Library


>
> # Seriously, though, if some real collaboration with Be does take
> # place then the scope of this project will expand far beyond Gnome.  The
> # market is ready (or rather, in need of) a cross-platform,
> # pluggable-architecture-based open media API.  We should get in touch
with
> # Loki, Apple, SGI, the KDE folks (and others?) and think about starting a
> # consortium for an open media standard.  (Something that's neither
> # Quicktime nor DirectX!)
>
> It's funny you should mention that :)
>
> It's something that Nicholas and I have already started discussing -
> albeit in private e-mail thus far. Certainly Jean Louis seems to think
> that a single standard media API is A Good Thing, and he created an
> operating system whose world revolves around multimedia (``BeOS: The Media
> OS'', as it's termed by Be).
>
> I would love to see the day when an open source media API is in widespread
> use, on pretty much every platform. Be it UNIXen, BeOS, MacOS, Win32 or
> anything else - if the same API was employed it'd be fantastic.

I think we can all agree that a standard is a Good Thing....

However, a good, clean & useable API is an even Better Thing. What I think
we need to do is:

* find out WHO are interested in this (e.g. I doubt Apple would be, though
it's worth a try).
* find out WHAT common ground there is between the platforms
* CHOOSE which platforms to work on - finding a balance between
gloablisation & platform features.

>
> I know this is starting to border on wishful thinking, but if we can drum
> up support on a wide scale, it could actually happen.
>
If it happens halfway, it is better than not at all.

nicholas