Comment 29 for bug 716814

Bachsau: OSS needs to be re-enabled.

Yes, the Kconfig in the kernel sources warns that OSS is deprecated.

Yet upstream Debian still ships with OSS enabled just like ALSA. And the upstream Linux developers recommend it too; see sound/core/Kconfig: "Many programs still use the OSS API, so say Y."

Indeed, they are right. There are plenty of packages written against the OSS API that still don't work correctly under aoss or ossp emulation. See bugs 605280, 605536, 613809, 619013, or try compiling the GPLed sources for Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Ever since OSS was disabled in bug 579300 in May 2010, Ubuntu has shipped with broken packages. This is an embarassing problem that should be fixed. We can fix this problem by (a) finding and rewriting every single OSS-using package that doesn't work under aoss or ossp, or (b) re-enabling OSS. Re-enabling OSS is easier, saner, and it allows support for old applications that aren't packaged with Ubuntu.

The argument for keeping OSS becomes even strong when you consider that:

(a) The upstream folks at Debian have kept OSS enabled this whole time, and they're still alive.

(b) OSS operates peacefully alongside ALSA; it's not necessary to choose one audio system over another. (This applies to OSS 3, the version that was disabled in bug 579300 and that had been included with the kernel sources and compiled as a module up until Ubuntu Maverick. OSS 4 does not integrate well with othe audio systems, but that's not what we're talking about here.)

(c) The justification in bug 579300 for removing OSS was never sound in the first place: (1) A developer claimed they were "investigating using OSSp to shunt all apps attempting to use the older, in-kernel OSS API"; that experiment failed and left broken packages in its wake. Either those packages should be fixed or removed, or OSS should be re-enabled to allow them to work again. (2) If the developer merely wanted to perform testing as he said he did, then why did he disable OSS across all of Ubuntu and not confine his work to his own development environment? If he meant that a *decision* had been made to disable OSS and that lots of packages needed testing, he should have said so; it could have avoided needless discussion and criticism.