[iiwusynth-devel] API changes ?

[Antoine Schmitt]

Hello,
I'm in the process of encapsulating the iiwusynth in a Director Xtra 
(Macintosh and Windows).
With Peter Hanappe, we have defined an Xtra API, that I will implement.
This API may need some iiwu API changes or adjustments at some 
places. I was wondering what is the process for such a change, 
considering that more and more projects are now being built upon the 
C API. Making some rude changes might break people's code that rely 
on the API. Note that though I am not used to GPL development, I am 
very used to shared/team development with version control. So I am 
more wondering what is the process in public projects like iiwusynth :
- who decides the changes
- who implements them
- is it better to make an API evolve (keep the old APIs and add new 
ones) or change (replace the old by the new)

For (a simple) example, here is the "sound font stack management" API now :

IIWU_SYNTH_API int iiwu_synth_sfload(iiwu_synth_t* synth, const char* 
filename);
        /* returns 0 or error */
/*  IIWU_SYNTH_API char* iiwu_synth_sfreload(iiwu_synth_t* synth, int num); */
/*  IIWU_SYNTH_API char* iiwu_synth_sfunload(iiwu_synth_t* synth, int num); */
IIWU_SYNTH_API int iiwu_synth_sfcount(iiwu_synth_t* synth);
IIWU_SYNTH_API iiwu_sfont_t* iiwu_synth_get_sfont(iiwu_synth_t* 
synth, int num);

The sfreload and sfrunload are not implemented. I need them for my 
Xtra. Is it ok if I implement them and add them to the API ?

Thanks
        Antoine

PS : some of you might be interested by the Xtra API that we have 
designed with Peter. If you want I can post it to the list.

        Antoine