Why is sound so complicated?

[Ben Scott]

On Nov 17, 2007 6:58 PM, sean <tech.junk at verizon.net> wrote:
> Why does sound seem to be so complicated on Linux?

  Sound seems complicated on Linux because sound is complicated on Linux.

  As for why it is complicated on Linux: What was originally available
(OSS, Open Sound System) was deficient in many ways.  Multiple,
independent efforts attempted to address various issues, but each with
different prerequisites and goals.  There is no central authority or
power which can decree any one thing the standard.  None of the
alternatives were so overwhelmingly better than everything else that
one became a de facto standard.

  It doesn't help that a strong sense of NIH (Not Invented Here)
pervades a lot of software development efforts.

> Gnome and KDE have their needed daemons to work properly among others.

  And both GNOME and KDE have decided their old daemons were deficient
and replaced them with new daemons.  And you forgot JACK, NAS, and
SDL.  Plus others I'm no doubt forgetting.

> I believe in free choice, but this seems overkill and more of a major
> headache.

  Yes.

-- Ben