Re: oscillators and the Web Audio API

On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 11:05 PM, Chris Lowis <chris.lowis@bbc.co.uk> wrote:

> On 08/02/2012 02:35, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>
>> Ultimately we're going to need more than one implementation of (whatever
>> the API is), probably one per browser engine. So it's not just a matter
>> of contributing code to "the Web Audio API".
>>
>
> I agree with you up to a point. However the code in Webkit is under a
> permissive license so will be available for porting to other browser
> engines at a later date.
>
> The contribution of code by a particular individual to a particular engine
> is not the concern of the W3C working group in my opinion, and further more
> should not be discouraged. As Phil said, he'll work on this "offline" and
> I'm sure we can follow updates on his progress here or in the Webkit repo.
>

I'm certainly not trying to discourage Phil from contributing code to any
project he wants!

However, it's very important to distinguish the Web Audio API from the
Webkit implementation of that API. If the Web Audio API is to become a W3C
spec, it needs be implementable from the spec, without borrowing or reverse
engineering the code of Webkit or any other implementation. To make sure
that's possible, we normally expect two independent implementations of a
spec to exist and interoperate before the spec is considered done. It would
not be a good thing to define part of the specification, explicitly or
implicitly, to be the behavior of some particular piece of code. (C is
especially terrible for this since it's so easy to write code whose meaning
is undefined in subtle ways.)

Rob
-- 
"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us
our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not
sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us." [1 John
1:8-10]