hi linus,

the alsa maintainers seem to be applying a reading of "we don't break user space" that i find counter-productive. so i would appreciate you clarifying your position on that matter (once more ...)

to be clear, we're not arguing over changing any abi, but simply exercising one somewhat more than before. the claim is that this would likely have unacceptable consequences. i disagree.

context:

Due to hardware constraints, changing the clock multiplier (CM) changes the available audio ports and the number of available channels. [...] Therefore, we do dynamic reconfiguration (DR) of the mixer in response to changing the CM.

arguments:

DR is somewhat controversial, as it has the potential to crash poorly programmed applications. But that in itself isn't a very convincing argument against it, as by that logic we'd have to ban all hot-plugging. (1) Such crashes would also not really qualify as regressions, as the D.A.S. mode is a new opt-in feature, and therefore no previously stable setups would be impacted. (2)

the full text is at https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230630144542.664190-7-oswald.buddenhagen@gmx.d...

the preceding discussion is at https://lore.kernel.org/all/87v8fren1k.wl-tiwai@suse.de/T/#u

regards, ossi