I remember using the OSS drivers and even paying for the commercial version at one point. The experience was great, and I hated it because it was a repudiation of Open Source, which was a big part of my identity back then. I had sold out to the man for working audio… but work it did.
Considering that OSS was (and still is) run by just a few people and is a small company, I don't think it's "selling out to the man"; it's not Microsoft or Amazon or anything. They tried to be as "open source as possible" while still ensuring they've got money to it. I don't think anyone got very rich from it.
Although details differ, all of this is still not really a solved problem today. People want to have their cake and eat it too.
Oh, yes, certainly my comment about selling out to the man was made tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at my younger self and how very serious I was about these things in the past. I am happy to see OSS earn some money for their efforts, even if my general personal disposition is still for open source.
I was a bit surprised to hear they are still a business in 2021. I see they are still releasing OSS and much of it under a GPL license too. I gather their OSS product customers must have some specialist sound system requirements for Linux / FreeBSD.
With ALSA, Pulseaudio, and now Pipewire there's not much point really; maybe it's better but that ship has sailed, on Linux anyway. It's become VHS vs. Betamax-kind of lamenting.
4Front seems to be working on https://www.truepianos.com now; though that one's not open source and no Linux version either.
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I remember using the OSS drivers and even paying for the commercial version at one point. The experience was great, and I hated it because it was a repudiation of Open Source, which was a big part of my identity back then. I had sold out to the man for working audio… but work it did.
Considering that OSS was (and still is) run by just a few people and is a small company, I don't think it's "selling out to the man"; it's not Microsoft or Amazon or anything. They tried to be as "open source as possible" while still ensuring they've got money to it. I don't think anyone got very rich from it.
Although details differ, all of this is still not really a solved problem today. People want to have their cake and eat it too.
Oh, yes, certainly my comment about selling out to the man was made tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at my younger self and how very serious I was about these things in the past. I am happy to see OSS earn some money for their efforts, even if my general personal disposition is still for open source.
I was a bit surprised to hear they are still a business in 2021. I see they are still releasing OSS and much of it under a GPL license too. I gather their OSS product customers must have some specialist sound system requirements for Linux / FreeBSD.
I'm not sure if they're really "in business" as such; it gets some very occasional updates for new kernels (last release: 2019), but that's about it. See e.g.: http://ossnext.trueinstruments.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&...
With ALSA, Pulseaudio, and now Pipewire there's not much point really; maybe it's better but that ship has sailed, on Linux anyway. It's become VHS vs. Betamax-kind of lamenting.
4Front seems to be working on https://www.truepianos.com now; though that one's not open source and no Linux version either.