bluetooth headset profile with alsa in user space.

James,

I've looked at this too. I'm crossposting to see if Marcel wants to comment.

Some people think bluetooth-alsa should have a smaller kernel footprint and some people think it's the userspace component that needs to be eliminated. The bottom line is that it needs to go in a direction that is acceptable to bluez and alsa but doesn't leave so much to be desired by the bluez group that they feel like reimplementing/rejecting it.

the less-kernel-space argument

- alsa would not be affected [much]
- bluez would only be affected in that we may want hooks to go into libbluetooth
- userspace stuff is easier to debug and develop
- supporting multiple headsets simultaneously should be more straightforward
- kernel developers won't be questioning it
- adding it to a linux distro that has bluez already would be easier

The more-kernel-space argument:

- alsa has said they would consider patches that don't have the userspace entanglements
- the bluez project leaders may decide that in-kernel is the way audio has to be done
- dbus/hotplug may play nicer with an in-kernel driver

I think now the less-kernel-space is safer. Regardless of our approach, apps that want bluetooth-alsa like asterisk will have to be linked with a new library so there's not a disadvantage there with another build requirement. There's probably just too much uncertainty with the in-kernel approach.

Brad