> ?I was merely trying to add a pragmatic > voice to the discussion - commercial R&D is often driven by > top-down management style directives made by those in > charge. ?This is a deliberate structure I would say that is > set out to ensure that duplicity doesn't take place in the > development process and to ensure development resources are > efficiently utilised. ?Without this kind of streamlining it > is difficult to implement top-down directives in the first > place (such as "all linux distros should use this common > linux audio layer because we said so"). Well, maybe there's some misunderstanding. I do not intend to tell anyone what audio system he should use in his system in a top-bottom manner. But on the other hand, if suddenly all applications had support for a certain audio layer, people would use it. It's not my intention to urge anyone to use a certain thing or not. But compared to CUPS, CUPS was a great thing and is meanwhile included in all major Distributions. If you dislike it, install something else. But for the common user, it's nice that it is there and is well preconfigured. Best regards ce