Mozilla Audio API and me

Hey,

I was reading the minutes from today's meeting, and thought I should 
respond to some of what I read, in particular:

-------------
Chris Rogers: I have noticed that Mozilla are pushing Data API in Firefox4.

Al: I believe that is true.

Chris Rogers: It will be exciting to see that people can play with these 
APIs. It might be akward that there are multiple APIs out there.

eric_carlson: I agree with Chris, I think it's unfortunate. I assume 
that the API will be Mozilla prefixed. It's a shame that we've been 
making good progress and havn't had a chance to dicuss this.

Al: Yes it is definitely prefexed with "moz"

Chris Rogers: I think this may slow down the standardization process, 
perhaps adding complications. And I find it unusual that Dave Humphrey 
has not participated in the group.
----------

Mozilla is planning to take my patch for Firefox 4 (I've already tried 
to land it once, and will be trying again this week for beta 5).  The 
API is an experimental Mozilla-only extension, and not meant to derail 
anything happening here--I was working on this stuff long before any of 
this was going on, and have simply pushed hard to see my work to completion.

Whatever might come out of this process, I don't think this api is a 
negative blow to your work in any way (people working with me have 
already started porting your API to js on top of it).  The people I've 
talked to see it as a chance to open the door to web developers 
scripting audio on the web.  This goal, as well as the goals of this 
group, are the same, and getting a sense of what the web will do with 
audio data is what this experimental API hopes to achieve.

Can it change in the future?  Of course.  Does Mozilla think this is the 
best and only way to do this?  I don't speak for Mozilla, so I won't 
pretend to answer.  I think some people confuse me for the maintainer of 
the audio/media stuff in Mozilla.  I am not.

I haven't been active in this group primarily due to time constraints, 
and also I've been relying on the fact that Corban has been involved 
(Corban and I talk daily, so I'm never far away from what's happening).

But also, I'm not an audio expert, and frankly, the discussions here are 
often beyond me and my ability to usefully contribute.  I'm a Mozilla 
contributor who has implemented an API that was designed by a bunch of 
people who are already on this list.

I will say, on a personal note, and perhaps not surprisingly, that I 
favour the approach I've taken, which seeks to do as much as possible in 
JS, and to keep the API as small as possible.  Philosophically, I wanted 
to make this API accessible to non-experts, and I think that this has 
been achieved.  What would audio experts build for the web?  I suppose 
that's what you guys are answering.

Dave

Received on Monday, 23 August 2010 17:53:46 UTC