From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Thu Feb  4 17:38:48 1999
Received: from sunu450.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de (sunu450.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de [134.147.222.33])
	by marvin.jcu.cz (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with SMTP id RAA04035
	for <alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz>; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:37:38 +0100
Received: (qmail 21700 invoked from network); 4 Feb 1999 16:37:34 -0000
Received: from dialppp-1-8.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de (HELO localhost) (mail@134.147.1.8)
  by mailhost.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de with SMTP; 4 Feb 1999 16:37:34 -0000
Received: from brinkmds by localhost with local (Exim 2.05 #1 (Debian))
	id 108RhE-0004FM-00; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:32:04 +0100
Message-ID: <19990204173204.D13898@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:32:04 +0100
From: Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
To: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz, rlb@cs.utexas.edu
Subject: Re: SB Live! support
References: <199902041029.KAA08939@ariel.sr.home>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
In-Reply-To: <199902041029.KAA08939@ariel.sr.home>; from Steve Ratcliffe on Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 10:29:26AM +0000
Reply-To: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Sender: alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz
Precedence: list

On Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 10:29:26AM +0000, Steve Ratcliffe wrote:
> > Hmm, I know I heard that Creative Labs had decided to assign someone
> > to create Linux drivers for this card, but now I can't figure out
> > where I saw that announcement.  Does anyone else here know?  What I
> > really want is an email address to send my comments to that might do
> > some good.
> 
> I found this link by Jon Taylor where he announced that he had got the
> job in this posting:
> 
>    http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=linux-ggi&m=91750053603759&w=2
> 
> It mentions that they will be doing binary-only drivers for both OSS
> and ALSA.  You can read his thoughts on the situation, but most of the
> article is about graphics drivers.

"Jon M. Taylor" <taylorj@ecs.csus.edu> wrote:
> I will be creating
> binary-only Soundblaster Live (OSS and ALSA) drivers to Linux, as the job
> posting requested. 

I have read parts of this mail, and I don't like a single line of it.
Creative labs is not making a single step progress by releasing binary only
drivers. As the author of the AWE Howto, I have supported Linux users for
over a year now, answering questions about getting the AWE cards to work
under Linux. This will stop then. I won't use the binary only drivers, and I
hope many people will do not so, too.

> Be nice, and maybe the hardware companies will be easier to
> talk into releasing more specs in the future....

I think this is utterly wrong. Be nice, and they will only give what they
want you to give. The Linux community is strong enough to request full
disclosure of the specs and source code, and if they don't want this,
they will loose.

Well, one way to prevent binary only drivers would be to release ALSA lib
under GPL...

RMS himself declares the LGPL as a failed experiment, and he will
rename it to Lesser GPL. I have lost the link, and can't find it currently,
but he had a web page about it...

Marcus

-- 
"Rhubarb is no Egyptian god."        Debian GNU/Linux        finger brinkmd@ 
Marcus Brinkmann                   http://www.debian.org    master.debian.org
Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de                        for public  PGP Key
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/       PGP Key ID 36E7CD09

