[linux-audio-user] Re: Companies Refusing to Release/Permit Linux Drivers

I am aware of "Open Hardware' and have been keeping an eye on it. There is nothing we would like better than to build our own audio interface and processor, but I have not yet seen anything in the way of sound cards that approaches the level of a Hammerfal DSP - yet. What I *have* been wondering for a long time is why the AD/DA technology is stuck at 24-bit? I've already heard all the brush-off arguments: nobody needs anything higher, you can't hear the difference, it takes too much disk, space, blah-blah-blah - which is a lot of bunk. Disk space is cheap, I *can* hear the difference, and bit-depth is far more critical to audio fidelity than sample-rate. I want to build a digital recording system that has the same fidelity as a 24-track reel-to-reel, and I believe this can in fact be achieved at high enough resolutions. I assume the blockage here is related to patent issues w/re to Cirrus logic's Crystal Semiconductor Corporation which owns the '483, '841, and '899 patents and has been agressively pursuing and winning infringement cases w/re to this technology. http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/federal/judicial/fed/opinions/99opinions/99-15… http://www.cirrus.com/en/press/releases/P36.html There is also the smell of the RIAA and Hollywood here http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/ olia/teachcomments/motionpiccomments.pdf - as ever, psychotically paranoid about piracy (and, I have always believed, concerned about competition from the independent sector.) I don't understand all the technology, or the legalities, but methinks something's rotten in Denmark. Why have CPU speeds and RAM and HDD speeds and capacities leapt ahead at such an incredible pace, while we are still stuck with 32-bit PCI buses and 24-bit converters? I do hope Free Engineering can change all this - but this patent stuff is intimidating - they seem to enjoy going around smashing fruit-flies with sledge-hammers. This is patent abuse - wielding patent law not merely to protect legitimate rights to income from an invention, but to quash any and all possibility of competition in the marketplace. Obviously, a totally new technology - not based on Crystal's - will be required to get out from under this cloud of restriction. Surely we can come up with something even better. To me the whole weakness and vulnerability of Open Software and Hardware arises from simply trying to RE technology then adapt it, rather than designing something completely new, then using Open Licensing schemes to keep the bullies from appropriating it for anticompetitive purposes and restricting consumer access to useful technologies. - Maluvia