I had an idea for a possible mini-project and wanted to toss it out
for discussion, since I'm not really involved in SIGLinux (with the
exception of posting questions here) at the moment, and really don't
know if there are currently any resources/interests in creating such a
project.
I bought an SBLive last May, and have been very happy with it. I can
load win98 and watch DVD's with surround sound, and windows games seem
to sound much better. Creative also has a Linux binary-only SBLive!
driver which, though it doesn't support four-point surround, allows me
to use my card like an SB16.
I was somewhat happy with this solution for months. Even though I
didn't really like the fact that the drivers were closed-source, and
that I can't use Debian's /etc/modules to load the driver under 2.2.12
since it's built for 2.2.10, I could at least play MP3's, CDs and
games. For the past few days, though, I've been considering testing
out the Hurd. Since this driver is a Linux kernel module, I'd be
giving up sound under the Hurd, and thus I probably won't have very
long uptimes because my box is my stereo, TV, etc. Plus, the release
cycles on the existing driver are terribly slow; the only change I
perceived in the last release which was months ago was the renaming of
the module to emu10k1 instead of sblive. My two rear speakers don't
even work under Linux.
So, I was considering helping to draft a petition to try to convince
Creative to make their driver development efforts open source. Then,
the SBLive driver could be moved into ALSA, which I think runs under
the Hurd. Furthermore, it probably wouldn't be difficult to support
the SBLive under *BSD, if it isn't already.
First, though, I'm planning on emailing the developers of the current
driver. Maybe they have some weird plan to GPL the drivers later,
though this makes no sense at all. :) I'd just like to understand
their motives for releasing a binary-only module as opposed to source
-- whether they're restricted by NDA, or whatnot.
Would anyone be interested in helping with such a project? For one
thing, I'm really not sure how to write a petition. I can use the ATI
petition as a framework, and could probably put something good
together, but I'm sure some of you have better writing skills than I
do. Plus, I tend to ramble, much like I'm doing now, and would
probably end up with a long argument in favor of GPLing the drivers,
instead of a short petition. :)
Second, and I'm not even sure if such a thing exists, if a petition is
written, we'd need to find a server which could survive, or at least
limp past, the Slashdot effect. I'm not sure how popular this will be,
or if anyone even cares, but it's best to be prepared just in case. I
normally host pages on my box, but I really don't want to test
Resnet's slashdotability, so to speak. :)
I probably should have addressed this concern of mine initially, but
would a petition be a very significant incentive for a company? I've
used the ATI petition as an example because I had been monitoring that
effort, and was glad that it received a response since I was
practically given an ATI All In Wonder card and really wanted to use
it. But, I'm sure that a number of petitions aren't even noticed by
companies. If this is the case, then there probably wouldn't be a
point in taking the time to draft a petition. On the other hand, if at
least some of these petitions are successful, I feel that the effort
might be worth the time investment.
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