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(contents of this file: links to each section)


What We Mean by the “Status” of an OSC Implementation

One of the most important aspects of this website is the list of software and hardware that can send and/or receive OSC messages: the list of OSC implementations, each with a page on the website that lists (among many other fields) the implementation’s “status”. Here is what we mean by each possible status:

Alpha
The project is not (fully) released, is under active development, may contain major bugs or missing features, could change drastically from its current form, and is still intended to be used mainly by the developers themselves. (See Alpha testing.)
Beta
The project is released (perhaps in a limited way) with the caveat that the currently-available version probably has problems and the creators are asking skilled users to try it out and report any issues. (See Beta testing.)
Active
The implementation fully exists and people are maintaining it. The website works, is essentially accurate, and has some kind of contact information. If it’s a commercial product then the company is still selling and supporting it. If it’s an open-source software project there is at least one person (preferably a team) doing things like fixing bugs, adding new features, and porting to new operating systems.
Legacy
The implementation was once active and is still available (e.g., for download) but there is no longer a team maintaining it. The website or code repository still exists but hasn’t been updated in 5+ years. The implementation might still work (perhaps with caveats) but if not, you may be on your own.
Defunct
The implementation “no longer works” (except perhaps under extremely limited contexts). The old website no longer exists except on archive.org. Hopefully it has been superceded by a newer active implementation with similar features.

To be clear, we are using the term “implementation” to refer to the entire thing that implements OSC, not just the OSC portion of that thing. Maybe the OSC module works and hasn’t been touched in years; as long as the thing around the OSC module is Active, then for purposes of this website, the entire “implementation” would be Active. For example, the Wireshark project is Active, so even though the wireshark.osc OSC-specific plugin is not likely to need to change in the future, the implementation as a whole would be Active rather than Legacy.

The implementations on this site conform to a certain field structure. The fields are the questions of the content submission form and the columns of the TSV file that is the source of the implementation web pages.

In addition to status there are

Status Date
The date the status was last updated
Status Notes
Any additional notes that might add detail and/or clarity
Superseded?
Blank if this implementation is still a good way to do something, or the URL (preferably on this site) of another implementation with largely or exactly similar functionality that is now the better way to accomplish that task. This open-format text field could contain annotations, caveats, conditionals, URLs of multiple implementations, etc., but in the simplest case a lone URL means “don’t use this; use that instead”.

This page of OpenSoundControl website updated Fri May 21 17:15:49 PDT 2021 by matt (license: CC BY).