Re: [linux-audio-dev] ISA Plug & Play support in kernel

Albert D. Cahalan (acahalan@cs.uml.edu)
Sat, 2 Jan 1999 03:13:45 -0500 (EST)


Richard Stallman writes:

> 1. For Ghostscript, everything added to the non-free version
> will appear in the free version a year later.

This can not happen. For many cards, NDAs would make a source
code release illegal. The sound system must be closed-source and
must be commercial to financially support the sole developer.

It is easy for you to say we shouldn't support such hardware.
Owners of such hardware are likely to go back to Windows though,
which is even less free than Linux + OSS. When they throw out
Linux, they generally throw out all free software and advise
friends and family to avoid it too. ("It can't do sound.")

ObKernel: Lack of PnP in the kernel is going to hurt! Normal humans
don't figure out the userspace tools and insert kernel modules
with the right parameters. Besides using an off-the-wall syntax,
the whole idea of a config file destroys PnP totally. We've invented
software jumpers. People hate jumpers with good reason, software
or not. Systems that can't determine their own configuration are
not somehow better; they are worse. I seem to recall we had code
for this too.

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