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Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 23:13:14 -0500
From: Thomas Hudson <thudson@cygnus.com>
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To: alsa <alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz>
Subject: Trident's contribution, a draft
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Below is a draft of what I plan to send out to drum up
support for Trident. Please feel free to comment and
let me know how I can improve it.

I was planning on sending this to Slashdot, rms, 
Linux World, and Linux Journal. Let me know of
any other recipients I should include.



---


I'm writing you to let you know of a recent hardware company's
exceptional support to the GNU/Linux community and the GPL.

The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture project (http://alsa.jcu.cz) is
a project designed to build an architecture for pro-quality sound and
MIDI applications, from low-level drivers for sound and MIDI hardware
to high level libraries and sequencers.  The project is committed to
releasing all work under the GPL.

As you may know, many sound card manufacturers are reluctant to give
any technical help, and even some of those that offer help require
NDA's, which of course excludes the possibility of releasing source. 
We have blacklisted some companies (http://alsa.jcu.cz/black.html) 
who have either refused to release information or have decided to 
release binary-only drivers, which ALSA will not use.

Trident (http://www.tridentmicro.com) recently contacted the ALSA
developer mailing list, having written their own drivers for their 4D
Wave chipset for ALSA, and offering the source for the drivers, and
a technical document. They graciously allowed all of it to be put 
under the GPL.

I am hoping to drum up support for their hardware in order for the
community to demonstrate how cooperation of this sort can aid
sales. Maybe this will convince more companies to follow.

Their chipset is used in the following products. If GNU/Linux users
are looking towards purchasing a sound card, perhaps they would
consider some of the following, since these cards are well-supported
under ALSA, with GPL'ed drivers.

Company     Product Name
=======================================
Best Union  Miss Melody 4DWave PCI

HIS         4DWave PCI

Warpspeed   ONSpeed 4DWave PCI

AzTech      PCI 64-Q3D

Addonics    SoundVision (model SV 750)

CHIC        True Sound 4Dwave

Shark       Predator4D-PCI

Jaton       SonicWave 4D

Paradise    WaveAudio Interactive (Model AWT4DX)

Promedia    Opera CyberPCI-64

Stark       PCI


You can read more about ALSA and the call to sound card manufacturers
at http://alsa.jcu.cz/call.html

Thanks,
Thomas Hudson
Cygnus Solutions

