Subject: Re: a.out and -current
To: Jerry Alexandratos <darkstar@udel.edu>
From: Miles Nordin <carton@Ivy.NET>
List: current-users
Date: 02/05/2000 13:21:16
On Sat, 5 Feb 2000, Jerry Alexandratos wrote:

> OSS ... it's in a.out format.

Is that the port of Slovansen's atrocious Linux audio drivers to other
operating systems, that he expects people to _pay_ for?  Those are
horribly written drivers, BTW.  Alan Cox spent several months of funded
time at RedHat fixing the mess that guy made with his so-called
``OSS/Free'' that he claims is in stock Linux.  Around 2.1.120, he had
used a #define for inb(), which might be ugly-but-okay, except that
Linux/Alpha #define'd inb, too!  hahaha!  

at least I think that's what happened--i remember it being broken, and i
fixed it, and i didn't understand _how_ i'd fixed it.  and then it kept
breaking.  and i didn't have CVS for local changes, because Linux is
distributed in Patchball form so naturally I used Patchballs myself for
local changes.  AGH. 

Slovansen doesn't contribute to the free stuff any more, AFAIK.

If you paid him and he advertised NetBSD compatibility, tell him you want
ELF!  the old dog.  better yet, just tell him he's FIRED!

> is there some way around this?

ossaudio(3) ?

COMPAT_LINUX or COMPAT_FREEBSD will enable some OSS compatibility in the
kernel, which is, as usual, a sweet idea that's copiously documented just
where Linux users tend to look, in sys/compat/ossaudio/files.ossaudio.

The idea here is that libossaudio is for source-level compatibility, and
COMPAT_* is for binary-level compatibility.

If I'm completely misinterpreting your question, I'm sorry.  I just
remember how much fun everyone had with this arrogant bastard's code in
the past and couldn't stop myself.

-- 
Miles Nordin / v:+1 720 841-8308 fax:+1 530 579-8680
555 Bryant Street PMB 182 / Palo Alto, CA 94301-1700 / US