Comment 13 for bug 557037

David,

Thanks for this answer. Please consider that for the alsa-firmware in
Medibuntu, we already have done a licence check: contacting vendors,
checking that every file needed is included, and so, wipe out some of
the firmwares.

The current version in Lucid + Medibuntu of alsa-firmware, alsa-tools,
and alsa-tools-gui work out of the box for the cards I can test (RME and
Echo)

Perhaps it can be a good start to use the Medibuntu work to include the
firmware into linux-firmware. Then, alsa-firmware should be depreciated
for Ubuntu, and perhaps other distributions.

Think that not a lot of sound cards still need firmware, but only
professional sound cards, used for exemple with -rt kernel and Ardour at
lowlatency for audio recording and producing. It is a way to give a
credibility to Ubuntu and Gnu/Linux in that domain to make this kind of
hardware work out of the box.

Toine