bug#74863: 31.0.50; Problems with play-sound on MS-Windows

bug#74863: 31.0.50; Problems with play-sound on MS-Windows

[Cecilio Pardo]

There are some problems with play-sound, but I didn't find an active bug 
for them. Before working on them I have a couple of questions:

- Is sound playing synchronous on purpose?

- To support :data, we can use the PlaySound function, but we will lose
the ability to play files other than wav. We can maintain the current 
code for files, and use PlaySound for :data. Another option would be to 
simply save data to a temp file and play the file.

bug#74863: 31.0.50; Problems with play-sound on MS-Windows

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:50:34 +0100
> From: Cecilio Pardo <cpardo@imayhem.com>
> 
> There are some problems with play-sound, but I didn't find an active bug 
> for them. Before working on them I have a couple of questions:
> 
> - Is sound playing synchronous on purpose?

It's synchronous because AFAIK the equivalent features on GNU/Linux
play sound synchronously.  We have a policy of not installing features
that might put non-free systems at an advantage.  So we can make the
sound playing on Windows asynchronous (which is very easily done on
Windows) once there is such a capability on free systems.

> - To support :data, we can use the PlaySound function, but we will lose
> the ability to play files other than wav. We can maintain the current 
> code for files, and use PlaySound for :data. Another option would be to 
> simply save data to a temp file and play the file.

I'd say the former is preferable, but without losing the ability to
play the files we can today.  That is, maintain the current code for
files and add new code for :data.

Thanks.

bug#74863: 31.0.50; Problems with play-sound on MS-Windows

[Cecilio Pardo]

On 14/12/2024 9:42, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> - Is sound playing synchronous on purpose?
> 
> It's synchronous because AFAIK the equivalent features on GNU/Linux
> play sound synchronously.  We have a policy of not installing features
> that might put non-free systems at an advantage.  So we can make the
> sound playing on Windows asynchronous (which is very easily done on
> Windows) once there is such a capability on free systems.

Should we add support for PipeWire on GNU/Linux?

bug#74863: 31.0.50; Problems with play-sound on MS-Windows

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 15:07:39 +0100
> Cc: 74863@debbugs.gnu.org
> From: Cecilio Pardo <cpardo@imayhem.com>
> 
> On 14/12/2024 9:42, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> - Is sound playing synchronous on purpose?
> > 
> > It's synchronous because AFAIK the equivalent features on GNU/Linux
> > play sound synchronously.  We have a policy of not installing features
> > that might put non-free systems at an advantage.  So we can make the
> > sound playing on Windows asynchronous (which is very easily done on
> > Windows) once there is such a capability on free systems.
> 
> Should we add support for PipeWire on GNU/Linux?

I don't know what PipeWire is, so I have no opinion on this.

bug#74863: 31.0.50; Problems with play-sound on MS-Windows

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Should we add support for PipeWire on GNU/Linux?

ALSA clients can be configured to output via PipeWire, and the Pipewire
project itself recommends staying with the ALSA API, at least for now:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/FAQ#what-audio-api-do-you-recommend-to-use

> I don't know what PipeWire is, so I have no opinion on this.

It's a new multimedia server that replaces both Pulse Audio and JACK.
AFAIK, it's the default sound server on Debian when using Gnome, and on
Fedora 34.