OT? Linux & VST (was Re: [sdiy] TI DSPs open source compiler?)

[Rainer Buchty]

> If I'm not mistaken, the VST SDK has some basic support for UNIX, but
> I've yet to hear about anyone who has written UNIX software that uses
> it.

Actually I'm somewhat gloating due to the fact that the music software
vendors now *must* do what they refused to do for so long time giving lame
excuses: adopting their software to Unix.

Nobody (well, make that "no programmer") ever believed that Unix by nature
would be "too slow to respond"  and offer "unstable timing" and that
decent software just needs complete control over the entire system
(excusing the merge of old DOS-time hacks into Windows95/98 software and
doing similar stuff with pre-X MacOS).

Now with MacOS X and the technically not so different W2K/WXP they just
have to learn their lessons -- and program for the OS of choice, not
around it.

Speaking of Steinberg: once they created a product line for SGI/Irix,
which was then almost instantly dropped.

> The approach that Linux has taken with VST seems *very* indirect. I'm not a
> programmer, but it seems that everything runs on top of various layers of
> emulations and "adapter" software. That is to say, it doesn't seem like an
> elegant and native implementation of VST at all.

The problem with VST is, that it is (c) Steinberg, now Pinnacle. And they
just don't give a damn about Linux, but surely would enforce law efforts
if somebody starts patching native VST into Linux.

Much like the WINE people must not have access to any information about
Windows internals, the LADSPA people must not have access to VST
information. Instead, they just have to map the (commonly known) API to
whatever is present.

> Can't we have a "native" implementation of VST on Linux, and then get some
> people to write or port some plugins to native Linux code? That seems best
> to me, but like I said, I'm not a programmer.   :)

Of course that would be better. But it's more of a legal issue than a
programming problem.

Rainer