I am pleased to announce the preliminary release of the 
Enlightened Sound Daemon (EsounD version 0.2) for Linux.  
More details at http://www.netcom.com/~ericmit/EsounD.html.
This program is designed to mix together several digitized 
audio streams for playback by a single device.  The current 
list of features includes the following functionality:

 o  A simple authentication scheme is implemented.  The first
    process to present a 16 byte key to the daemon determines
    the ownership of the daemon.  The owner of the daemon may
    allow or disallow connections from other keys.  If a HUP
    signal is received, ownership of the daemon is reset.

 o  Playback of multiple digital samples simultaneously is 
    supported.  The daemon uses a raw sample format which 
    is easily generated by the SOX utility from many other 
    data formats.

 o  The mixed audio data may be output from the daemon as a
    "monitor" stream.

 o  Recording from the current input of the sound device is
    supported.  Full duplex operation (simultaneous recording
    and playback) is supported.

 o  Client connections may cache samples for playback by an 
    assigned identification number.  For example, a window
    manager may cache samples in the server for playback on
    various events, and play them back without replaying the
    full audio stream for the sample.  Samples may be looped
    until the server receives a "stop sample" message. 

Currently, the only platform supported is Linux.  It is intended
 that this program support multiple platforms.  I have limited
 access to other Unix platforms, so any help in porting the
 Enlightened Sound Daemon to other platforms is appreciated.  
The amp program, by Tomislav Uzelac may be a good reference 
for porting the audio interface to other platforms.

This is to be considered an alpha release, as functionality
remains to be implemented.
