Re: Vendoring code in a (Non?)GNU ELPA package

[Daniel Semyonov <daniel@dsemy.com>]

>>>>> Stefan Kangas writes:

    > Daniel Semyonov <daniel@dsemy.com> writes:
    >>>>>>> Richard Stallman writes:
    >> 
    >> >> My module only uses the audio playback API to play music
    >> through >> Emacs.  I don't currently have plans to make use of
    >> other parts >> of the library.
    >> 
    >> > I see.  It woild not be a pronlem to use a simple free linraru
    >> for > that.  But maybe it is not necessary.  Will `play-sound' do
    >> the > job?
    >> 
    >> Unfortunately no, for various reasons: - 'play-sound' blocks
    >> Emacs while the sound is playing; the functions my module
    >> implements play audio and manage playback asynchronously.  -
    >> 'play-sound' only supports playing WAV and AU files (though I see
    >> now that sound data can also be passed as a string, so I could
    >> implement decoding functions in C and use them together with
    >> 'play-sound' to play any sound file IIUC).  - My module has been
    >> successfully tested on Android, and should also work on Windows.
    >> 'play-sound' doesn't work at all on Android, and passing sound
    >> data as a string isn't supported on Windows.

    > Is it possible to fix the above issues in `play-sound'?  That
    > would be preferable, because then it would benefit all users and
    > not just those that use your module.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, though it would change the
behavior of `play-sound' slightly, so maybe a new function should be
introduced instead.

I could try to implement an `async-play-sound-internal' built-in
function (for GNU/Linux only at first), using the available subroutines
in "src/sound.c", though it might take me a while as I have near zero
experience with Emacs' C code, and this will be lower level than the
implementation in my module.

BTW, is using threads (pthreads) acceptable?  I saw many files under
"src/" that include "pthread.h" but I couldn't find any file where a
thread is created (though maybe I missed something).
If not, I'm not really sure how to implement this (I only ever did async
programming in C using pthreads, and since I don't have any sort of
formal background in C, I never learned or tried any other method).

Thanks,
Daniel