Re: [RFC] Echoaudio driver

[Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>]

At Thu, 7 Oct 2004 22:01:54 +0200,
Giuliano Pochini wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 12:52:42 +0200
> Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de> wrote:
> 
> > > The overall structure of the driver is about the same of the
> > > au88x0 driver (I took it as model).
> >
> > Well, I don't like the current implementation of au88x0 drivers, too
> > ;)  As a result, you got bunch of ifdefs in the code.
> >
> > In the case of au88x0, it was hard to merge because they use different
> > addresses in each chip, while echo boards seem to have the same
> > register offsets, right?
> > But I don't insist on this rewrite if you prefer keeping this, of
> > course.
> 
> Most of the #ifdef's are used to exclude unused controls. Those parts can be
> moved into separate files and included from <card>.c just like the other
> parts. snd_ctl_add() calls will remain inside conditionals anyway.

Sounds better (unless this results in too many files :)


> > At least, all functions and variables should have the same style.
> > The combination of HowLooksThis and how_looks_that is ugly, IMO.
> 
> I have changed everything to the alsa style.

Fine, thanks.


> > > > The problem is similar, the license of this firmware is unclear.
> > > > Let's push it to user-space.  You can replace it easily with
> > > > request_firmware() (although it's for 2.6 kernels only).
> > >
> > > I don't thing the licence is a big problem: the people at
> > > Echoaudio are very friendly. I'll contact them.
> >
> > That's really appreciated.  To be noted, it's not recommended to
> > include such binary data into the kernel tree, especially if it's
> > avoidable easily.  (I see you already started coding
> > request_firmware().)
> 
> They agreed to release their code under dual Echo/GPL licence. It's not
> available on the echoaudio site yet... actually they gave me the permission
> to re-release that code. The firmware may be used inside a GPL project, but
> its sources are not available. Here is the message. I removed the email, but
> it's possible to contact Echoaudio at this public address:
> devsupport@echoaudio.com

That's great.

About the firmware: since the recent 2.4 kernel also includes
request_firmware(), it's the easiest way to go, I believe.

I'll rewrite the firmware code later for other drivers.  I'll likely
keep the old implementation of ALSA firmware loader for the cases that
no kernel fw-loader is configured or the driver is built in kernel.


If you finish them, please send me the patch.


thanks,

Takashi


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