[pulseaudio-discuss] Per-application volume glitching, and an idea for multiple channel volume control

[Jud Craft]

A good point, but you can't expect all Linux applications to alter
their sound playback to be forward compatible with Pulse.  I'm sure
Skype will get right on that. :)

There is still the case where programs that _do_ play long sound
streams will still not be accessible when they don't play sounds.
(Ex, a Banshee/Amarok that's stopped).

I suppose it comes down to what you see Pulseaudio as an abstraction
around:  streams of sound, or the sources of sound themselves.  I
always like to think of it as the sources(applications) themselves,
since that is immediately recognizable.  A user sees Banshee on the
screen and knows that Banshee plays sound; he's not concerned with
whether it's playing a sound at that very second or not.  Even if the
app is quiet, the app is still there; it's unintuitive that Pulseaudio
has suddenly forgotten about it just because it's not playing.

I understand that's an opinion though.  (It's also possible that
you've addressed the actual problem in practice when I get around to
using the new version.  Being an end-user I'd rather see it be easy to
use regardless of the implementation details).