From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Sat Feb 27 07:47:11 1999
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To: alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Cc: thudson@cygnus.com
From: sharkey@ale.physics.sunysb.edu
Subject: Re: Trident's contribution, a draft 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 25 Feb 1999 23:13:14 EST."
             <36D61F5A.E98889BE@cygnus.com> 
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Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 15:46:22 +0900
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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.

The Linux Weekly News might be interested in this as well.

The text you've written seems a little long, and too introductory.  I'm sure
most of the readers of the publications you've listed are well aware of
the difficulties in getting proper hardware documentation.  It also sounds
too much like an advertisement.  I know you want to "drum up support" for
Trident, but you don't have to actually *say* that.  Just state the facts.
Once it's known that Trident is providing GPL Linux drivers for the community,
it will be known that Trident has done a Good Thing, and Trident will get the
support you want them to get.  You don't need the hard sell marketing approach.

One of the things you've failed to mention is that this was a spontaneous
effort on the part of Trident.  There was no lengthly battle to procure
hidden documents.  Trident has contributed the driver without anyone asking
them to do so.  (I suppose there may have been some requests by some
individuals which alerted Trident to a potential market, but there was no
organized public campaign to get this level of support, AFAIK.)

Finally, while I believe it is a good thing to send off a message like this,
I'd like to delay it a bit.  Why?  Because I haven't yet heard of anyone
outside of Trident actually getting these drivers working.  It would be nice
if one or two people could acquire a 4D card and actually test this thing.
That way, when we make the announcement, we can say with confidence that
the drivers they have provided are functionally sound. (sorry for the pun)

I don't really expect that there will be any problems, but in general it's a
good idea to have at least one beta tester before announcing a product.
You don't want to say a product is "well supported" unless you really know
that it is.


Let me offer this revised text which you may use/discard/modify at your
discretion:

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

 Trident Microsystems (http://www.tridentmicro.com) recently contacted the
 ALSA developer mailing list to announce that they had written ALSA compatible
 drivers for their 4D Wave PCI sound card chipset.  Trident has offered the
 source for these drivers, as well as complete technical documentation for
 the chipset.  All of this material has been provided voluntarily, without
 external pressure, and will be licensed under the GPL and incorporated into
 the ALSA driver suite.  See http://hyppo.screwdriver.net/show.phtml?id=102919
 for the original announcement.

 The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) 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.
 
 The 4D Wave chipset is used in the following products:
 
 Company     Product Name
 =======================================
 Addonics    SoundVision (model SV 750)
 AzTech      PCI 64-Q3D
 Best Union  Miss Melody 4DWave PCI
 CHIC        True Sound 4Dwave
 HIS         4DWave PCI
 Jaton       SonicWave 4D
 Paradise    WaveAudio Interactive (Model AWT4DX)
 Promedia    Opera CyberPCI-64
 Shark       Predator4D-PCI
 Stark       PCI
 Warpspeed   ONSpeed 4DWave 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


That's my $0.02, since you asked.

Eric


