[LAA] Source code for Open Sound System now available under GPLv2 and CDDL 1.0

From: Hannu Savolainen <hannu@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Thu Jun 14 2007 - 00:42:15 EEST

Hi folks,

Now it has happened. Open Sound System is finally open sourced.

Source downloads are available from http://developer.opensound.com/sources

The actual announcement follows.

Best regards,

Hannu
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

4FRONT TECHNOLOGIES RELEASES THE SOURCE CODE FOR OPEN SOUND SYSTEM

CULVER CITY, CA, June 14, 2007: 4Front Technologies is proud to announce
the release of the source code to Open Sound System (OSS) v4.0. The
software currently runs on Linux, Solaris™, SCO UnixWare™ and FreeBSD
platforms.

OSS is a cross platform API that provides drivers for most consumer and
professional audio devices for UNIX® and POSIX based operating systems,
including Linux. Owing to its open architecture, applications developed
on one supporting operating system platform can be easily recompiled on
any other platform.

Licensing Models:

Open Sound System source code is now available under 3 licenses:

· GNU Public License (GPL) version 2

· Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) for all operating
systems that have full source code available under the BSD or CDDL licenses.

· 4Front’s commercial license for using Open Sound incompatible with
open source licenses listed above. Commercial licenses are also
available for entities not wishing to use Open Sound System under any of
the above open source licenses

What is being open sourced?

The source code includes drivers for most consumer PCI and USB audio
devices and operating system support, including binary package
generation and sample test programs. Complete documentation and API
specification is also being made available to the open source community.

A device driver kit (DDK) is also available for developers to implement
cross platform device drivers for audio hardware. This eliminates lot of
redundant work that has traditionally been required to support any
hardware under multiple Unix/POSIX operating systems.

Reasons for going Open Source:

OSS has been an open API specification with multiple implementations by
independent developer communities. This has caused problems for
application designers because there are minor differences between the
implementations. The new open source community development model makes
it possible to replace the obsolete and incompatible vendor specific
sound subsystems and OSS implementations with a state-of-the-art
implementation developed by 4Front Technologies. The goal has always
been to standardize audio under POSIX compliant systems and this
includes real time operating systems and embedded systems as well.

"We are open sourcing OSS because this provides a great opportunity for
different communities to work together to provide wider audio hardware
support for all operating systems." said Hannu Savolainen, CTO and chief
architect of Open Sound System.

Industry Reaction:

"It's great to see 4Front releasing OSS under the Common Development and
Distribution License (CDDL). It's something the OpenSolaris™community
welcomes, and it provides an opportunity to improve sound support for
all OpenSolaris™ distributions," says Stephen Lau, OpenSolaris™ board
member.

"Fluendo is excited to see the open source release of 4Front
Technologies advanced OSS implementation for UNIX® and Linux. Getting a
unified and advanced sound system across all major UNIX® and Linux
variants will be a big advantage for developers. We look forward to
working together with 4Front Technologies to make sure the GStreamer
multimedia framework and the Open Sound System integrates perfectly with
each other", says Fluendo Business Development Manager Christian F.K.
Schaller.

"With a long history of successful collaboration with 4Front, Creative
looks forward to working with the Open Sound System community in
ensuring that Creative Sound Blaster Live! and Sound Blaster Audigy
sound cards have stable and well-supported drivers on Linux, Solaris and
BSD. The open source release of Open Sound certainly helps our goal in
providing cross-platform support for our products," said George Thorn,
director of digital media relations
for Creative Labs.

Community Portal

A new web site with source code, API specs and forums for the developer
community has been opened at http://developer.opensound.com
<http://developer.opensound.com/>. For more information and to download
the binary distributions of Open Sound System, visit 4Front's WWW site
at http://www.opensound.com <http://www.opensound.com/>.

--- xxx ---

All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries,
exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

Sun, Solaris, OpenSolaris, Sun Microsystems and The Network Is The
Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems,
Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Open Sound System is a trademark of 4Front Technologies.

Copyright (C) 1996-2007, 4Front Technologies, All Rights Reserved.

Contact: Dev Mazumdar

4Front Technologies

4035 Lafayette Place, Unit F

Culver City, CA 90232

USA.

Tel: (310) 202 8530 E-mail: info@email-addr-hidden <mailto:info@email-addr-hidden>

Fax: (310) 202 0486 Web: http://www.opensound.com
<http://www.opensound.com/>

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Received on Thu Jun 14 08:15:02 2007

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