OpenAL is a 3D positional spatialized sound library analogous to OpenGL:
instead of micromanaging each aspect of sound playback and effect, the
application writer may limit himself to placing sounds in the scene and
letting the native OpenAL implementation determine the correct amount of
pitch alteration, gain attenuation, phase shift, etc., required to render
the sounds correctly.
Provided in PR pkg/20759 by Juan RP, with some changes by me.