Hi Piotr,

In general, I think this is good. Some points though...

* I don't think you should demand firmware source. Asking for that might be seen as quite invasive. It might be a bonus to have, but I don't see anyone hacking on it. Their firmware works, It's a driver that we need. Does this card even use firmware? I guess...

* Linking to a mirror probably isn't too smart if they think their infos are going to distributed all over the web. Sorry, that was my fault. I'm an idiot. I think the correct link should be http://www-old.alsa-project.org/alsa/ftp/datasheets/

* I would offer a fall back. I would propose that the approach you have mentioned is in their best interest however if they are unwilling to distribute the information freely, then the next best thing would be to find one developer that is able, willing and possesses the hardware. That's not ideal. I would prefer the second approach to no driver at all, as would you, I'm sure. However, I don't speak for anyone else when I say that.

* I'm sure they know the ins and outs of open source but you should confirm with them the terms of this arrangement. NDAs are basically incompatible with this whole thing because, usually, releasing the source will breach the NDA. Make sure they know that the driver being produced is open source and licensed under the GNU GPL.

Ash

----- Original Message ----- From: Piotrek oponek@gmail.com To: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org, "Pawe³ Wolniewicz" admin@linux-muzyka.ixion.pl Subject: [alsa-devel] ESI MAYA44 PCI datasheet request Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:50:27 +0200

I would like toshow you the letter that I am going to send to the ESI company. I am asking you to accept this letter because I am going to send it on behalf of the ALSA development team. Any suggestions will be welcome.

Dear Sir/Madam,

In reply to the letter sent 14.07.2007:

2007/8/14, ESI UK Support uksupport@esi-audio.com:

Dear Piotr

ESI do not provide and have no plans for Linux drivers for our products However ESI are happy to provide /share information to an Individual developer within the Linux community That is able and capable to develope drivers and wishes to develope drivers

Regards UK Support ESI Auditechnik

I would like to ask you to share the information about ESI MAYA44 PCI card needed to write drivers on behalf of the ALSA development team. ALSA team needs all the information that you give your programmers to create drivers for the device. We would like to ask you for:

• a full datasheet containing IO port layout, register descriptions and

commands,

• ESI MAYA44 PCI firmware,
• EIS MAYA44 PCI firmware source code,
• permission for the firmware to be distributed with ALSA,
• source code for currnet windows drivers would be very helpful but isn't

essential.

There are many peope that are willing to write the driver for MAYA44 and because of the way Open-Source software and drivers are developed, in the interest of it's quality, it is important that the information about the card are accesable for all of the ALSA developers. We ask for your permision to place that information on the ALSA server for developers. Thanks to that any qualified person will have acces to it. Many other companies provided that kind of information to us this way before: http://ftp.mj2.org/pub/alsa/datasheets/

I am sure that adding this card to the list of the suported cards under the linux operating system will cause the number of satisfied ESI card users to increase. Thank you for your co-operation.

-- Best Regards, Piotr Makowski ALSA Development Team _______________________________________________ Alsa-devel mailing list Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel

----- Original Message ----- From: Piotrek oponek@gmail.com To: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org, "Pawe³ Wolniewicz" admin@linux-muzyka.ixion.pl Subject: [alsa-devel] ESI MAYA44 PCI datasheet request Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:50:27 +0200

I would like toshow you the letter that I am going to send to the ESI company. I am asking you to accept this letter because I am going to send it on behalf of the ALSA development team. Any suggestions will be welcome.

Dear Sir/Madam,

In reply to the letter sent 14.07.2007:

2007/8/14, ESI UK Support uksupport@esi-audio.com:

Dear Piotr

ESI do not provide and have no plans for Linux drivers for our products However ESI are happy to provide /share information to an Individual developer within the Linux community That is able and capable to develope drivers and wishes to develope drivers

Regards UK Support ESI Auditechnik

I would like to ask you to share the information about ESI MAYA44 PCI card needed to write drivers on behalf of the ALSA development team. ALSA team needs all the information that you give your programmers to create drivers for the device. We would like to ask you for:

• a full datasheet containing IO port layout, register descriptions and

commands,

• ESI MAYA44 PCI firmware,
• EIS MAYA44 PCI firmware source code,
• permission for the firmware to be distributed with ALSA,
• source code for currnet windows drivers would be very helpful but isn't

essential.

There are many peope that are willing to write the driver for MAYA44 and because of the way Open-Source software and drivers are developed, in the interest of it's quality, it is important that the information about the card are accesable for all of the ALSA developers. We ask for your permision to place that information on the ALSA server for developers. Thanks to that any qualified person will have acces to it. Many other companies provided that kind of information to us this way before: http://ftp.mj2.org/pub/alsa/datasheets/

I am sure that adding this card to the list of the suported cards under the linux operating system will cause the number of satisfied ESI card users to increase. Thank you for your co-operation.

-- Best Regards, Piotr Makowski ALSA Development Team _______________________________________________ Alsa-devel mailing list Alsa-devel@alsa-project.org http://mailman.alsa-project.org/mailman/listinfo/alsa-devel