I am pleased to announce the preliminary release of the 
Enlightened Sound Daemon (EsounD version 0.2.8) for Linux.
More details at http://www.tux.org/~ricdude/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 where available.

 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. 

 o  Filters may be inserted into the audio stream, for 
    processing of the audio signal between the mixing and 
    playback stages.

 o  Some server status information is available to clients.

The Enlightened Sound Daemon is known to work to varying degrees
on Linux/OSS, Linux/ALSA, Solaris, HPUX, *BSD, and IRIX operating
systems.  Ports to other platforms are appreciated.

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