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Open Sound Control for Drupal

Submitted by oweno on Fri, 2009-03-27 16:40
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This is a proposal to bring Open Sound Control (OSC) capabilities to Drupal.

Open Sound Control (OSC) is a protocol for communication among computers, sound synthesizers, and other multimedia devices that is optimized for modern networking technology (see opensoundcontrol.org for more info)

Originally a replacement to MIDI, OSC capabilites extend far beyond musical instruments, as it allows all kinds of devices large and small to exchange messages. See the implementation list for all the hardware and software devices that speak OSC.

Possible applications:

  • home automation
  • interactive exhibition design
  • sensor network integration
  • management of electrocic music data
  • interactive multimedia art
  • other real world interfacing

Since OSC is independent on the transport layer, the Drupal implementation will allow for OSC messaging over TCP/HTTP or UDP. With UDP, duplex communication is possible between Drupal and OSC enabled devices / software.

More generally this effort hopes to be a bridge between the rising Open Source Hardware movement and Open Source Web Development.

Details:
There are 3 parts to the project:

  1. OSC client and server API
    Message parsing
    Message forming -- there is already PHP code for this.
  2. A mapping utility to map Drupal events to OSC address spaces
  3. HTTP or UDP mechanisms for sending and recieving messages
    The message handling will be kept seperate from the transport mechanisms (sort of like Services), so the packets may be sent / received using either UDP or HTTP.

Difficulty: Medium

Groups:
SoC 2009
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I like this idea, but it

opensanta's picture
opensanta - Fri, 2009-03-27 19:43

I like this idea, but it seems like you're going to have a hard time appealing to many Drupallers. I think a picture would go a long way in showing people how Drupal could integrate with this extended realm of content management.


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Why would Drupal want

Mgccl - Fri, 2009-03-27 20:55

Why would Drupal want this?
I'm sure there are Drupal users who want OSC implemented inside Drupal... but most Drupaler will never need it.
I think it is better to make it into a PHP library instead of something just for Drupal. As most of the possible applications you listed are not reasons why people use Drupala. It will help more people that way.


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Wouldn't receiving packets

jtsnow's picture
jtsnow - Fri, 2009-03-27 23:25

Wouldn't receiving packets require a process to be continually running? Neither PHP or Drupal were meant for that sort of task and unless a user has a dedicated server, his or her web host wouldn't even allow it.


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Hey now.. :)

opensanta's picture
opensanta - Sun, 2009-03-29 19:05

@doubters: External services are a great way for Drupal to do more just those cheap web forms :-P

Let's keep our evaluations positive and try not to bias the potential work of these bright students; I'd love to seem more far out ideas like this one. It looks like oweno put the time into making this proposal look realistic and possible, even if it only seems desirable to 1% of the Drupal community for now.

@oweno: Still waiting for that diagram :)

plug: I made a poll Which type of project is going to amaze us all this year?


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