[Python-3000] PEP 3108: Standard Library Reorganization

[Anthony Baxter]

Starting a new thread...

> Several modules in the stdlib work on a specific file format.  It 
> is possible some of these formats are no longer used and thus the 
> stdlib modules for them can go.  Below is a list of some modules 
> which rely on a file format that may be obsolete.
> audioop
>     Raw (8|16|32)-bit wide audio files (as generated by the al and
>     sunaudiodev modules).
> chunk
>     AIFF, AIFF-C, and RMFF audio files.
> sunau
>     Sun AU audio files [#sun-au]_.

audioop and sunau disappearing would make me _very_ _very_ unhappy. 
audioop in particular- I make heavy use of it in a number of 
projects (both opensource and non).

The sunau format is still used in quite a number of places - for 
instance, it's the default format for cisco access gateways, as 
well as a bunch of other hardware. 

I could see the justification for moving all of the audio-specific
modules (these ones, aifc, wave, sndhdr) into a new toplevel 'audio' 
package. Although 'chunk' is also used for some forms of image 
file, IIRC. If we did move it to a new package, I could also see 
adding a new module that worked in a format-independent way (since 
aifc, sunau and wave all have compatible interfaces).