[Flac-dev] flac in the filesystem?

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Sat, Nov 03, 2001 at 03:58:44PM -0800, Joshua Haberman wrote:

> * Matt Zimmerman (mdz at debian.org) wrote:
> > I agree with Josh (the other one) that abstraction libraries like
> > libaudiofile are a good way to make this a zero-maintenance feature.
> > Theoretically, support for new formats can be added to the library, and
> > all programs using that library will become instantly able to handle it.
> 
> This is clearly the best solution. However, no abstraction library exists
> today that can read and write all common uncompressed formats, vorbis,
> mp3, and FLAC.  Instead I'm stuck writing and maintaining separate code
> for libsndfile, libvorbis, libmad, lame, and libFLAC.

Instead of doing this, devote that effort to improving one of the existing
abstraction libraries, and then use that for everything.  This way, your
application is simpler, and others can benefit from your work.

> I also don't foresee all of the windows audio jukebox programs that my
> friends use linking with this universal audio format library anytime
> soon. :-(

Non-free software will always suffer from this kind of problem; there isn't
much that can be done about it (except contribute to free software).

-- 
 - mdz