[linux-audio-dev] Re: Behringer

[vanDongen/Gilcher]

On Friday 03 December 2004 14:44, Doug Wellington wrote:
 ;-)  Seems to me if I was to take the time to
> contact the companies that aren't making products I need and berate them
> for it, I would be wasting a lot of my life...
>

I think the whole thread got started by the fact that Marek needs the product, 
or feels that he needs it. That he went and bought assuming a linux driver 
would appear is maybe naive, but the crucial point is that there are some 
product that have no alternatives and linux, let alone oss drivers.

In this case it is AFAIK the only firewire800 interface on the market, up to 3 
units can be daisy chained, maintaining sample sync for a staggering number 
of channels (60 channels of 96KHz 24 bit, 84 if you drop down to 48KHz.) 
etc..,etc... very nice.
Of course this is also exactly the reason RME doesn't want to release an oss 
driver. They get this preformance by doing something really clever and they 
want to corner some part of some market.

A real conundrum
And this will get worse IMHO. 
The oss advocates seem to insist on a separation between soft- and hardware 
that is becoming more and more vague. 
I wonder if it is even economically feasible to make small production runs 
when you put all your custom stuff in custom chips instead of in the driver 
and using off the shelf components.
And what is the difference between a closed-source library/driver and a some 
custom chips without blueprints/specs?  Does anyone here run a computer where 
they full access to all the bios/northbridge/southbridge specs and code?

Anyway being forced to choose your OS based on the hardware you buy, is like 
being forced to choose your fuel based on the type of car you have :)
(or is it picking your bike based on the food you eat)

Anyway, another post in this usenetlike thread. When is hitler coming up?

lets make programs or sound.

Gerard