E-mail from Erik, 8 months ago:
Hi Laurent,
Dealing with this issue is high on my todo list.
I intend to email all the people who have significant contributions
to libsndfile and ask them if they are OK with a modification to
libsndfile's license.
That modification would be to change libsndfile to LGPL with a
static linking exception on iOS and any other OS which does not
provide support for dynamic linking.
This change keeps the spirit of the LGPL and fixes the issue with
iOS.
Cheers,
Erik
Nothing else since then.
libsndfile is not an audio player. It's just an audio file reader/writer. And no other library does that.
If I redesigned the audio module so that it is more abstract, I could plug other file backends, and easily provide support for at least OGG, WAV and Apple's audio format(s) on iOS.
Thanks for quoting the email, it's good to see the reply.
This is just my person opinion, but if libsndfile's license change is something that still doesn't have an estimated date, it might be more worthwhile to, as you've said, first redesign the audio module to allow users to play at least OGG, WAV, and Apple's audio format(s) on iOS.
I feel users' first priority is in actually getting audio to play - most games are nothing without sound, and if the price to pay is some abstraction, I feel that most would comply than go without an entire audio module which in many cases prevents development completely.
If some time afterwards libsndfile does make the license change, then we could perhaps revert back to the original code at that point and remove the abstraction layer.
All in all, I feel this is more a time issue - if libsndfile's license change is unpredictable then I sense that abstracting the audio module to provide users with basic sound play, and reverting the code after libsndfile's license change (whenever that may be) may be a more attractive stance to take.
It may perhaps be worthwhile to send Erik another email to ask if there's been process over the last 8 months.