[LAA] Source code for Open Sound System now available under GPLv2 and CDDL 1.0

Hannu Savolainen hannu at opensound.com
Wed Jun 13 17:42:15 EDT 2007


Hi folks,

Now it has happened. Open Sound System is finally open sourced.

Source downloads are available from http://developer.opensound.com/sources

The actual announcement follows.

Best regards,

Hannu
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

4FRONT TECHNOLOGIES RELEASES THE SOURCE CODE FOR OPEN SOUND SYSTEM

CULVER CITY, CA, June 14, 2007: 4Front Technologies is proud to announce 
the release of the source code to Open Sound System (OSS) v4.0. The 
software currently runs on Linux, Solaris™, SCO UnixWare™ and FreeBSD 
platforms.

OSS is a cross platform API that provides drivers for most consumer and 
professional audio devices for UNIX® and POSIX based operating systems, 
including Linux. Owing to its open architecture, applications developed 
on one supporting operating system platform can be easily recompiled on 
any other platform.

Licensing Models:

Open Sound System source code is now available under 3 licenses:

· GNU Public License (GPL) version 2

· Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) for all operating 
systems that have full source code available under the BSD or CDDL licenses.

· 4Front’s commercial license for using Open Sound incompatible with 
open source licenses listed above. Commercial licenses are also 
available for entities not wishing to use Open Sound System under any of 
the above open source licenses

What is being open sourced?

The source code includes drivers for most consumer PCI and USB audio 
devices and operating system support, including binary package 
generation and sample test programs. Complete documentation and API 
specification is also being made available to the open source community.

A device driver kit (DDK) is also available for developers to implement 
cross platform device drivers for audio hardware. This eliminates lot of 
redundant work that has traditionally been required to support any 
hardware under multiple Unix/POSIX operating systems.

Reasons for going Open Source:

OSS has been an open API specification with multiple implementations by 
independent developer communities. This has caused problems for 
application designers because there are minor differences between the 
implementations. The new open source community development model makes 
it possible to replace the obsolete and incompatible vendor specific 
sound subsystems and OSS implementations with a state-of-the-art 
implementation developed by 4Front Technologies. The goal has always 
been to standardize audio under POSIX compliant systems and this 
includes real time operating systems and embedded systems as well.

"We are open sourcing OSS because this provides a great opportunity for 
different communities to work together to provide wider audio hardware 
support for all operating systems." said Hannu Savolainen, CTO and chief 
architect of Open Sound System.

Industry Reaction:

"It's great to see 4Front releasing OSS under the Common Development and 
Distribution License (CDDL). It's something the OpenSolaris™community 
welcomes, and it provides an opportunity to improve sound support for 
all OpenSolaris™ distributions," says Stephen Lau, OpenSolaris™ board 
member.

"Fluendo is excited to see the open source release of 4Front 
Technologies advanced OSS implementation for UNIX® and Linux. Getting a 
unified and advanced sound system across all major UNIX® and Linux 
variants will be a big advantage for developers. We look forward to 
working together with 4Front Technologies to make sure the GStreamer 
multimedia framework and the Open Sound System integrates perfectly with 
each other", says Fluendo Business Development Manager Christian F.K. 
Schaller.

"With a long history of successful collaboration with 4Front, Creative 
looks forward to working with the Open Sound System community in 
ensuring that Creative Sound Blaster Live! and Sound Blaster Audigy 
sound cards have stable and well-supported drivers on Linux, Solaris and 
BSD. The open source release of Open Sound certainly helps our goal in 
providing cross-platform support for our products," said George Thorn, 
director of digital media relations
for Creative Labs.

Community Portal

A new web site with source code, API specs and forums for the developer 
community has been opened at http://developer.opensound.com 
<http://developer.opensound.com/>. For more information and to download 
the binary distributions of Open Sound System, visit 4Front's WWW site 
at http://www.opensound.com <http://www.opensound.com/>.

--- xxx ---

All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, 
exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

Sun, Solaris, OpenSolaris, Sun Microsystems and The Network Is The 
Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, 
Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Open Sound System is a trademark of 4Front Technologies.

Copyright (C) 1996-2007, 4Front Technologies, All Rights Reserved.

Contact: Dev Mazumdar

4Front Technologies

4035 Lafayette Place, Unit F

Culver City, CA 90232

USA.

Tel: (310) 202 8530 E-mail: info at opensound.com <mailto:info at opensound.com>

Fax: (310) 202 0486 Web: http://www.opensound.com 
<http://www.opensound.com/>




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