Folks, perhaps a GNU Vendor ID is due.
The latest alsa usbmidi has added support for the proprietary Midisport protocol, which is (as any proprietary protocol) identified by the Vendor/Product ID. The devices downloads firmware over USB. This firmware then contains this particular ids. To make use of the protocol supported by the alsa driver, a proprietary binary firmware ripped-off or eaves-dropped from the windows driver is necessary. Now i wrote a gpl'ed usb-midi complient firmware to do things the complient, freeware way, but used the same ids, hoping, the proprietary firmware would be contained in the windows world. But - now it happend. We finally have the case of a device which talks two different protocols, depending on the firmware loaded, and a driver which hooks in triggered by the v/p ids assuming proprietary protocol being talked. Please get my intention and the situation right. There simply is that proprietary protocol with that particular vendor/product id. It is there. Additionally, reusing the ids of the vendor as i did, might not only be a technical, but also a legal issue, as i'm use ids registered by a particular vendor, who might have exclusive rights to use the ids, and the only way around the whole problem appears for me to use a GNU vendor id. Now i write to ask for your advice how to do things the right way. I fear that picking a GNU id would overdo and overcomplicate matters. I'm not even certain about the registration process or whether fee become due to usb.org. I'm also not clear how the vendor/product id has to be understood. Is it for the physical device (in which case it cannot be changed) or to the firmware? But hacking a workaround on top of the alsa driver for a particular device trying to guess which firmware is running is very unnice, though perhaps pretty straight forward as one firmware issues a usb-midi interface and the other a proprietary one. But this is the typical kind of hack which always gets forgotten and broken, as soon as anything is changed, so "fixing" things this way will typically means it has to be fixed over and over again. I made that clash in the vendor/product name space and it's me to seek for a way to somehow get aside. But where to? -lars ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: Influence the future of Java(TM) technology. Join the Java Community Process(SM) (JCP(SM)) program now. http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?sunm0003en _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, use the last form field at: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-usb-devel
