bug#74863: 31.0.50; Problems with play-sound on MS-Windows

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2024 00:50:34 +0100
> From: Cecilio Pardo <cpardo@imayhem.com>
> 
> There are some problems with play-sound, but I didn't find an active bug 
> for them. Before working on them I have a couple of questions:
> 
> - Is sound playing synchronous on purpose?

It's synchronous because AFAIK the equivalent features on GNU/Linux
play sound synchronously.  We have a policy of not installing features
that might put non-free systems at an advantage.  So we can make the
sound playing on Windows asynchronous (which is very easily done on
Windows) once there is such a capability on free systems.

> - To support :data, we can use the PlaySound function, but we will lose
> the ability to play files other than wav. We can maintain the current 
> code for files, and use PlaySound for :data. Another option would be to 
> simply save data to a temp file and play the file.

I'd say the former is preferable, but without losing the ability to
play the files we can today.  That is, maintain the current code for
files and add new code for :data.

Thanks.