[linux-audio-user] Interesting Tidbit: The Midas XL8 uses Linux

[Lee Revell]

On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 20:55 +0200, Alberto Botti wrote:
> Il giorno mer, 07/06/2006 alle 11.49 -0400, Lee Revell ha scritto:
> > On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 04:50 -0500, Jan Depner wrote:
> > >     Why do you assume this?  There are plenty of closed-source
> > > applications and drivers running on top of Linux.
> > > 
> > 
> > Closed source applications are perfectly OK.  A closed source ALSA
> > driver violates the GPL.
> 
> >From the ALSA soundcard support page
> (http://www.alsa-project.org/call.php):
> 
> "There is nothing to stop any company from developing a binary only
> driver that works with ALSA. But there are several issues and
> requirements we want to make clear to anybody attempting to do this."
> 

"Works with ALSA" is not exactly the same as a binary ALSA driver.

"Binary-only drivers cannot be based on any ALSA source code. They must
be written from scratch. Binary-only drivers that contain ALSA code are
infringing on copyright laws."

IOW, a binary only ALSA driver can implement the ALSA API, but it cannot
use the ALSA kernel middle layer at all.

AFAICT this means that you could implement a ALSA compatibility wrapper
around a binary blob as long as that blob was not developed for use on
Linux.  But developing a binary driver for use on Linux is clearly a
derived work of the kernel and thus illegal.

Lee