Re: replacing esd with gstreamer

[Janina Sajka <janina rednote net>]

You raise the appropriate concerns, as usual. May I just add that
queuing sounds may be appropriate to some disability use cases, though
probably not for most blind users who will instead require simultaneous
play? In fact, I'm not clear what the use case for queuing is, though
I'm willing to accept that more than one probably exist.

Another strong concern is that the GUI desktop layer is far too late in
the process for managing multiple sound streams. Whether or not it
should be kernel linked or can exist in user space may still be in
contention among various accessibility user groups, but I expect that
waiting for the desktop will be seen as unacceptably late in the
process.

So, if gstreamer is just another way to interface to low level audio
management, that would prove helpful. But, if it competes with lower
level management--like alsa dmix, or jack--there will be dissension, I'm
sure. Ultimately, we must find a solution that Gnome, KDE, and console
apps can all live with, or we will have no solution at all.


Bill Haneman writes:
> One big concern with our sound frameworks in general is how mixing and
> multiple/concurrent sound requests are handled.  These are of special
> interest to accessibility, so any move to revise/revamp the gnome sound
> interfaces needs to consider that issue and ensure that, at least for
> the maximum reasonable subset of hardware,  concurrent sound is
> possible.  Furthermore, some way of _preventing_ concurrent sounds (i.e.
> a policy that queues them sequentially instead) probably is necessary in
> order to support text-to-speech users.  Another key characteristic and
> question is how such support will coexist with console
> applications/sessions which make use of sound, since many screen reader
> users also use console-mode text-to-speech systems when doing
> command-line and virtual terminal work.
> 
> I don't know the answers to these questions, or even know to what degree
> they can be addressed in gstreamer, but I do know that the answers are
> very important to some users.  This is currently an area of active
> discussion which is slated to lead to standardization activity in the
> Free Standards Group in the future.  Can those "in the know" clarify the
> relationship between the esd-compatibility wrappers, gstreamer, and the
> use cases/requirements I mention above with regard to software or
> hardware mixing and concurrent/sequential sound?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Bill
> 
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Janina Sajka				Phone: +1.240.715.1272
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