24 Nov
2004
24 Nov
'04
7:15 p.m.
Hi all,
sorry for crossposting, just wanted to let everybody know:
The official statement is that there will be no support for ALSA (Linux)
FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no such drivers,
as it is impossible to write them without tons of hardware and software
documentation from RME. And we won't share these information with
anyone.
Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME
No further explanations.
The moral of this story is:
Never buy a product that isn't already supported in ALSA, such as i did.
:( There's no guarantee even if pretty much every other card from the
same manufacturer *is* already supported.
Me and Benno talked to Matthias personally during Musikmesse, he was
friendly and seemed to be open with regards to future cooperation with
oss developers.
Seems like things have changed dramatically since then.
Marek
24 Nov
24 Nov
7:37 p.m.
On Thu, Nov 25, 2004 at 02:14:11AM +0100, Marek Peteraj wrote:
The official statement is that there will be no
support for ALSA (Linux)
FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no such drivers,
as it is impossible to write them without tons of hardware and software
documentation from RME. And we won't share these information with
anyone.
Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME
No further explanations.
Suck. I guess I won't buy one then. Sigh. Why do companies suck so
much?
8:42 p.m.
On tor, 2004-11-25 at 02:49 +0300, Dmitry Baikov wrote:
Time to develop really open (FireWire?) audio
interface, free as in speech.
As you might have already noticed, free (as in freedom) designs for
hardware have been discussed here lately.
There is a fee for prototyping though! I believe that the consensus was
that one should not use the nearmost supplier (close to Arctic Circle?)
but rather the least expensive supplier (which may be in Melbourne)
We are still talking a ton of dough, and an individual fronting the
consequences of everybody else banging out, is risking a substantial sum
of money.
/j
BTW: MIDI Firewire is a standard freely for sale >;->
8:54 p.m.
Maybe we should start a sooper dooper fundraising scheme like what the
firefox crew did ;)
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 01:42 +0100, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
On tor, 2004-11-25 at 02:49 +0300, Dmitry Baikov
wrote:
--
Dan Harper
http://danharper.org
--- Enhancing the Linux desktop for desktop users ---
--- http://danharper.org/linuxdesktopblog/ ---
Time to develop really open (FireWire?) audio
interface, free as in speech.
As you might have already noticed, free (as in freedom) designs for
hardware have been discussed here lately.
There is a fee for prototyping though! I believe that the consensus was
that one should not use the nearmost supplier (close to Arctic Circle?)
but rather the least expensive supplier (which may be in Melbourne)
We are still talking a ton of dough, and an individual fronting the
consequences of everybody else banging out, is risking a substantial sum
of money.
/j
BTW: MIDI Firewire is a standard freely for sale >;->
9:23 p.m.
On tor, 2004-11-25 at 11:53 +1100, Dan Harper wrote:
Maybe we should start a sooper dooper fundraising
scheme like what the
firefox crew did ;)
Well, my 20€ is here, but who would you like me to send them to?.
Preferrably to someone not going to Goa next week.
On the other hand, I am not at all familiar with "The Firefox Crew" nor
what they have done. Can you elaborate on that?
> We are still talking a ton of dough, and an
individual fronting the
> consequences of everybody else banging out, is risking a substantial sum
> of money.
/j
10:09 p.m.
"The Firefox Crew" is referring to the team that have recently released
version 1.0 of Firefox [http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/], an
Internet browser based on Mozilla [http://www.mozilla.org].
They recently rallied to fundraise money to fund a full page
advertisement in the New York Times. Apparently they received around
$200,000 USD in total, the left over goes to future software development
efforts. [http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/4891%E2%80%9D]
Now, our Linux Audio audience is a lot narrower than what a web browser
would appeal to, but maybe it's a start, and with some smarts, we may
surprise ourselves.
Dan
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 02:23 +0100, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
On tor, 2004-11-25 at 11:53 +1100, Dan Harper wrote:
--
Dan Harper
http://danharper.org
--- Enhancing the Linux desktop for desktop users ---
--- http://danharper.org/linuxdesktopblog/ ---
Maybe we should start a sooper dooper fundraising
scheme like what the
firefox crew did ;)
Well, my 20€ is here, but who would you like me to send them to?.
Preferrably to someone not going to Goa next week.
On the other hand, I am not at all familiar with "The Firefox Crew" nor
what they have done. Can you elaborate on that?
> We are still talking a ton of dough, and an
individual fronting the
> consequences of everybody else banging out, is risking a substantial sum
> of money.
/j
25 Nov
25 Nov
3:09 a.m.
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 02:49 +0300, Dmitry Baikov wrote:
Time to develop really open (FireWire?) audio
interface, free as in speech.
Developing and manufacturing hardware is very different from doing the
same things for software.
Economic models that work for one may or may not work for the other.
--
Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/
24 Nov
24 Nov
7:39 p.m.
Hi all,
The official statement is that there will be no support for RME from
me. In other words I will buy no hardware or software from RME because
it is impossible for me to share my hard earned money with a company
that is unwilling to support my operating system of choice. But I'll
certainly share my money with other companies. Any companies listening
out there?
Regards
Jan Depner
On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 19:14, Marek Peteraj wrote:
Hi all,
sorry for crossposting, just wanted to let everybody know:
The official statement is that there will be no support for ALSA (Linux)
FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no such drivers,
as it is impossible to write them without tons of hardware and software
documentation from RME. And we won't share these information with
anyone.
Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME
No further explanations.
The moral of this story is:
Never buy a product that isn't already supported in ALSA, such as i did.
:( There's no guarantee even if pretty much every other card from the
same manufacturer *is* already supported.
Me and Benno talked to Matthias personally during Musikmesse, he was
friendly and seemed to be open with regards to future cooperation with
oss developers.
Seems like things have changed dramatically since then.
Marek
8:20 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] RME is no more
Hi all,
I will also make my official statement to all sound card manufacturers.
I will only buy sound cards that are fully operational with my operating
system of choice - Linux. Around 6 months ago I did just this, I was in
the market for a professional multichannel sound card interface for my
laptop and even though the unit is much more expensive than the
competition (like double the price for less features, although probably
slightly better quality), I purchased an RME Hammerfall Cardbus and
Multiface.
I hope you are all listening to this and what this means, I am willing
to pay double the price (in this case $1400 AUD more!) for a sound
interface that supports Linux.
If RME doesn't wish to support the development of open source drivers
for their hardware, I will have to go elsewhere.
Regards,
Dan
On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 17:57 -0600, Jan Depner wrote:
Hi all,
The official statement is that there will be no support for RME from
me. In other words I will buy no hardware or software from RME because
it is impossible for me to share my hard earned money with a company
that is unwilling to support my operating system of choice. But I'll
certainly share my money with other companies. Any companies listening
out there?
Regards
Jan Depner
On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 19:14, Marek Peteraj wrote:
--
Dan Harper
http://danharper.org
--- Enhancing the Linux desktop for desktop users ---
--- http://danharper.org/linuxdesktopblog/ ---
Hi all,
sorry for crossposting, just wanted to let everybody know:
The official statement is that there will be no support for ALSA (Linux)
FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no such drivers,
as it is impossible to write them without tons of hardware and software
documentation from RME. And we won't share these information with
anyone.
Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME
No further explanations.
The moral of this story is:
Never buy a product that isn't already supported in ALSA, such as i did.
:( There's no guarantee even if pretty much every other card from the
same manufacturer *is* already supported.
Me and Benno talked to Matthias personally during Musikmesse, he was
friendly and seemed to be open with regards to future cooperation with
oss developers.
Seems like things have changed dramatically since then.
Marek
7:49 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: [linux-audio-dev/user] RME is no more
I forgot, this is the product i'm talking about:
http://www.rme-audio.de/firewire/ff800.htm
Marek
7:49 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: [linux-audio-user] RME is no more
Hallo,
Marek Peteraj hat gesagt: // Marek Peteraj wrote:
Me and Benno talked to Matthias personally during
Musikmesse, he was
friendly and seemed to be open with regards to future cooperation with
oss developers.
This is "oss" as in "Open Source SW", I suppose, not as in "Open
Sound
System"?
Ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
7:59 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: [linux-audio-user] RME is no more
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 00:49, Frank Barknecht wrote:
Hallo,
Marek Peteraj hat gesagt: // Marek Peteraj wrote:
Open source, me = alsa only. :)
Marek
Me and Benno talked to Matthias personally during
Musikmesse, he was
friendly and seemed to be open with regards to future cooperation with
oss developers.
This is "oss" as in "Open Source SW", I suppose, not as in "Open
Sound
System"? 
25 Nov
25 Nov
2:27 p.m.
The official statement is that there will be no
support for ALSA
(Linux) FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no
such drivers, as it is impossible to write them without tons of
hardware and software documentation from RME. And we won't share these
information with anyone.
since complaining about this at the rme support i got the
following
response:
FW Audio gibt es derzeit unter Alsa gar nicht. Und
sehr viel von dem,
was beim FF800 FW-technisch unter Windows geschieht, ist
Eigenentwicklung. Wir würden also mit einem OS-ALSA-Treiber bzw. der
dafür notwendigen Hardware-Dokumentation in mehrfacher Weise unserer
Konkurrenz unter die Arme greifen. Bitte haben Sie Verständnis daür,
daß das nicht in unserem Sinne sein kann. Es geht nicht um eine
prinzipielle Abkehr von Linux.
a short translation:
currently there is no firewire audio support in alsa. a lot of the
firewire technology for windows has been their development.
it's not that they generally stop linux support...
cheers ... tim
--
mailto:TimBlechmann@gmx.de ICQ: 96771783
http://www.mokabar.tk
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space
would say "I want to see the manager."
William S. Burroughs
2:53 p.m.
Hallo,
Tim Blechmann hat gesagt: // Tim Blechmann wrote:
And to translate the missing, but IMO important part
"With an OS-ALSA-dirver or the needed hardware documentation we would
support our competitors in several ways. Please understand, that this
cannot be in our interest."
So basically they want to protect their investment in getting
knowledge of how to implement a powerful firewire interface from the
eyes of other hardware manufacturers. It's a pity, of course, but also
somehow understandable. It's still good that they were and are
supportive regarding their PCI cards. This is different from a company
like NVidia, which not only hides docs for their competitive 3D-cards,
but also docs about network adapters and onboard soundchips. So with
NVidia it's a company philosophy to not talk to open source developers
at all, with RME it's just restricted to their new FW box. (Usual
plug: People should stop buying NVidia stuff, but not RME cards.)
Well, lets just hope, Freebob is successful, as this will generate a
nice kind of pressure in the FW world in general, to which RME might
bow later, too. ;)
Morale of story: Always buy old hardware of about one year ago at
least.
Ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
FW Audio gibt
es derzeit unter Alsa gar nicht. Und sehr viel von dem,
was beim FF800 FW-technisch unter Windows geschieht, ist
Eigenentwicklung. Wir würden also mit einem OS-ALSA-Treiber bzw. der
dafür notwendigen Hardware-Dokumentation in mehrfacher Weise unserer
Konkurrenz unter die Arme greifen. Bitte haben Sie Verständnis daür,
daß das nicht in unserem Sinne sein kann. Es geht nicht um eine
prinzipielle Abkehr von Linux.
a short translation:
currently there is no firewire audio support in alsa. a lot of the
firewire technology for windows has been their development.
it's not that they generally stop linux support... 
5:17 p.m.
On Thu, Nov 25, 2004 at 07:53:18PM +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote:
So basically they want to protect their investment in
getting
knowledge of how to implement a powerful firewire interface from the
eyes of other hardware manufacturers. It's a pity, of course, but also
somehow understandable.
Actually I find their reasoning rather weak. Since this is based on
firewire, the driver would not actually be talking directly to the
hardware. It is not as e.g. with PCI where a set of FPGA registers
would be directly mapped and visible to the driver. With a layer like
firewire in between, it should not be too difficult to actually hide
all real hardware details - just use a high level of abstraction.
Of course this requires more intelligence in the hardware, which
is now probably at least in part in the driver.
--
FA
12 Dec
12 Dec
7:02 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] RME is no more
Frank Barknecht <fbar(a)footils.org> writes:
So basically they want to protect their investment in
getting
knowledge of how to implement a powerful firewire interface from the
eyes of other hardware manufacturers.
A society where you put money higher than cooperating with other
people is not a good society, in my opinion.
--
Esben Stien is b0ef(a)esben-stien.name
http://www.esben-stien.name
irc://irc.esben-stien.name/%23contact
[sip|iax]:b0ef@esben-stien.name
14 Dec
14 Dec
2:31 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] RME is no more
On Sun, 2004-12-12 at 12:03 +0100, Esben Stien wrote:
Frank Barknecht <fbar(a)footils.org> writes:
Christ, what the fuck country do you live in? Don't you understand the
concept of people having bills to pay? Or do you just assume the RME
guys are independenly wealthy and just design sound cards for fun?
Sheesh.
Lee
So basically they want to protect their
investment in getting
knowledge of how to implement a powerful firewire interface from the
eyes of other hardware manufacturers.
A society where you put money higher than cooperating with other
people is not a good society, in my opinion.
5:02 a.m.
New subject: Open Source Hardware (Re: [linux-audio-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] RME is no more)
Lee Revell wrote:
Christ, what the fuck country do you live in?
Don't you understand the
concept of people having bills to pay? Or do you just assume the RME
guys are independenly wealthy and just design sound cards for fun?
Interestingly some people seem to be existing who are working on Linux for fun.
Also there is a concept known as "Open Source Hardware" which was mentioned
here
before.
Cheers,
Andreas
27 Nov
27 Nov
4:07 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: [linux-audio-user] RME is no more
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 02:14 +0100, Marek Peteraj wrote:
The official statement is that there will be no
support for ALSA (Linux)
FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no such drivers,
as it is impossible to write them without tons of hardware and software
documentation from RME. And we won't share these information with
anyone.
Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME
Meh. So we all go buy M-Audio Firewire interfaces. Looks like they
will have the first supported firewire gear. I am sure RME knows this
and did the math. The system works.
Lee
4:25 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: [linux-audio-user] RME is no more
Lee Revell wrote:
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 02:14 +0100, Marek Peteraj
wrote:
Supported how? I thought FreeBob wasn't going to support M-Audio after all.
Is there something else in the works?
Simon
The official statement is that there will be no
support for ALSA (Linux)
FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no such drivers,
as it is impossible to write them without tons of hardware and software
documentation from RME. And we won't share these information with
anyone.
Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME
Meh. So we all go buy M-Audio Firewire interfaces. Looks like they
will have the first supported firewire gear.
4:48 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: [linux-audio-user] RME is no more
On Sat, 2004-11-27 at 20:39 +0000, Simon Jenkins wrote:
Sorry, you are right. I saw a recent post on alsa-devel that someone
was working on a driver but that was someone from FreeBob.
Anyway, how hard can it be to reverse engineer, say, an 828? ALSA
developers have reverse engineered many other devices. Maybe the issue
is that no one has the gear or a strong motivation to buy it.
Lee
Meh. So we all
go buy M-Audio Firewire interfaces. Looks like they
will have the first supported firewire gear.
Supported how? I thought FreeBob wasn't going to support M-Audio after all.
Is there something else in the works?
4:51 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-dev] Re: [linux-audio-user] RME is no more
Simon Jenkins wrote:
Lee Revell wrote:
We would like to support the M-Audio stuff, but...
According to their statements they don't use the BeBoB firmware provided
by BridgeCo (the company that produces the chipset these boxes are built
upon). Apparently they have developed their own firmware. And (for the
moment) they don't want to release details about this firmware. As a
result there M-Audio devices won't be supported by the FreeBoB driver.
I think that the first FW pro-audio device with linux support will be
the EgoSys ESI QuataFire 610. I got one from EgoSys to assist FreeBoB
development, and I like it. But due to it's limited I/O it's no match
for the RME Fireface or M-Audio Firewire 1814 devices. I have the
impression that it's more oriented to laptop based live perfomances. But
maybe the people at EgoSys are working on a larger version... The
BridgeCo chipset can handle more, and they already have the knowledge.
So if there is a market for an extended version, they might develop one.
Greets,
Pieter Palmers
FreeBob developer
On Thu, 2004-11-25 at 02:14 +0100, Marek Peteraj
wrote:
Supported how? I thought FreeBob wasn't going to support M-Audio after
all.
Is there something else in the works?
The official statement is that there will be no
support for ALSA
(Linux)
FireWire drivers from RME. In other words there will be no such
drivers,
as it is impossible to write them without tons of hardware and
software documentation from RME. And we won't share these
information with
anyone.
Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME
Meh. So we all go buy M-Audio Firewire interfaces. Looks like they
will have the first supported firewire gear.
6 Dec
6 Dec
12:19 p.m.
Hello!
Though I read about 50 percent of this thread, I don't know where exactly to
add this replay. So I put it topmost.
Eric S. Raymond has an opinion about that in his paper called "The Magic
Cauldron" (17. Appendix: Why Closing Drivers Loses A Vender Money):
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/magic-cauldron/magic-cauldron.html
Read the whole paper if you wanna know, in which cases open or closed source
makes sense.
Andi
7279
days inactive
7299
days old
linux-audio-dev@lists.linuxaudio.org
23 comments
16 participants
participants (16)
-
Andreas Kuckartz -
Andreas Roedl -
Dan Harper -
Dmitry Baikov -
Esben Stien -
Florin Andrei -
Fons Adriaensen -
Frank Barknecht -
Jan Depner -
Jens M Andreasen -
Lee Revell -
Marek Peteraj -
Pieter Palmers -
Simon Jenkins -
Tim Blechmann -
Tim Hockin