semi-obsolete audio drivers

[Andrew Eikum]

On 03/30/2011 09:23 AM, Joerg-Cyril.Hoehle at t-systems.com wrote:
> Andrew,
>
> [good news, esp. the time-line]

Let's hope I can stick to it :-P. It's looking good, though.

>>OSSv4 (complete)
> Do you specifically use OSS *v4* functions not available earlier?
> (I'm not familiar with OSS4, even though I consult their docu online
>   and hope that what they write also applies to my machine with OSS v3 (Ubuntu)).

I wrote it following the OSSv4 spec and using an OSSv4 implementation, 
so I suspect it won't work on OSSv3. I thought about supporting OSSv3, 
but I think it's not worth the effort -- that's a really old version 
that, when written, didn't support multiple clients simultaneously, had 
no mixer, etc. OSSv4 has a lot of features that make the driver much 
simpler.

Further, I think only Linux is still stuck on OSSv3. I looked at a 
number of other operating systems, mostly BSDs and Solaris, and they all 
use OSSv4 by default. So I think Linux users should be covered by ALSA 
or PulseAudio (or perhaps JACK), and the much-more-pleasant OSSv4 is 
available for BSDs and Solaris. If a Linux user really wants OSS, I 
think they should probably upgrade to OSSv4 anyway.

I could look at making it OSSv3 compatible, but I just think it's not 
worth the effort of supporting such an old and cantankerous API.

Andrew