[Consortium] a few more rants...

[Marek Peteraj]

> Perhaps instead of rotating the hardware, we could set up a
    > scheme whereby one developer or site 'X' agrees to be the
    > maintainer of support for device 'Y', and other developers who
    > want to test their software on 'Y' have to work with 'X'. That
    > way, 'X' gets the benefit of having the loan hardware on-site,
    > but also has the responsibility to work with the community on
    > support for it.

This is completely wrong. I would never advise open-source developers to borrow a device in order to get a job done
for free and additionally have responsibilities(such as returning the hw and responsibility to work with the community on
support for it). This should be a responsibility of the company that manufactures that device.
Obsequiousness is not what's going to help us.

Curently, as very few companies provide open source drivers for their hw unfortunately, 
the company can either donate a device or provide specs if that developer already bought their device.
If you already own a device (whether donated or not) it's in your personal interest to get the driver done.
If you're not a developer capable of coding a driver, you can either
a) pay someone to get it done
b) pester him and pray that he will accept ;)
In that case you would lend him your own hw. 
That means there's no need to talk about responsibility. It just isn't how opensource works.

We should be advising people to buy hw which is already supported.

Regarding the 'Linux Audio' conference announcement on linuxaudio.org:

Daniel, AFAIK it's Linux Audio Developers ZKM conference, but sounds like it's now a linuxaudio.org conference.
To quote you from jan-12-2004 "Secondly, as important as the ZKM conference is, it 
has no official status." Well now it sounds it has got an official
status. But it sounds more like it's now a linuxaudio.org conference
more than a LAD conference. If you view linuxaudio.org as a separate
project, i think it's fair to call things by their right names and not
usurp an event for your own project.

On Tuesday 03 February 2004 08:14, Richard Bown wrote:

> > You simply haven't thoroughly read my messages.
> Tell you what Marek.  Why don't we play a game of who can keep quiet the 
> longest?  You start.

I win. ;)

Marek