Re: [FFADO-devel] RME FireFace400/800 in progress

[Jonathan W. <jw...@ph...>]

Hi all

Pieter wrote:
> Eric Shattow wrote:
> > I've had an IRC chat with freenode user faberman. He talked personally 
> > to RME Audio engineers and has received code and PCIe / FireWire related 
> > hardware, for the purpose of developing Linux drivers. The support is 
> > closely related to existing ALSA drivers for the HDSP series of RME 
> > hardware, and so, he is setting up an independent project at website: 
> > http://www.linuxproaudio.org (incomplete at the time of this post)
> > 
> > I found this news worthy of mentioning here on FFADO-devel. The RME 
> > FireFace400/800 are best-of-class FireWire audio interfaces, and now 
> > there is a developer with access to write a driver for this hardware.
> > 
> > There is a wiki in progress, with some information: 
> > http://wiki.linuxproaudio.org
> 
> That's good news.
> 
> I would prefer though if they joined FFADO for the Fireface. In my 
> opinion it's the most sane thing to do. The last thing we need is more 
> fragmentation.

I agree - that seems to be the sensible move to me.  FYI I have emailed
faberman (or at least what I think is the correct address) to try to get
more details and to see whether or not he wishes to contribute towards
FFADO.

Eric Shattow wrote:
> Now it's something like, "RME engineers are in control of the source code
> and documentation, and were never contacted due to a wall of the RME
> marketing division".

I could certainly believe that.  It wouldn't be the first time I've
encountered a situation like this within a company.

> There's an interesting story behind this. It's sufficient to say that this
> guy has made a breakthrough in obtaining source code / docs / development
> hardware, and is working on GPL-licensed driver support.

If this extends to the firewire devices then it can only be good news.

> Perhaps he will think FFADO framework is interesting and then contribute
> directly, maybe not.

I am hopeful he will join the FFADO effort.  However, if this doesn't happen
we may still be able to utilise his JACK driver to fill in the gaps of our
own RME knowledge (which incidently is in doc/rme_notes of the trunk as
of rev 1308).

Regards
  jonathan