Lennart Poettering is an idiot. [1]
[1]
http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/guide-to-sound-apis.html
The Open Sound System is a low-level PCM API supported by a variety of Unixes including Linux. It started out as the standard Linux audio system and is supported on current Linux kernels in the API version 3 as OSS3. OSS3 is considered obsolete and has been fully replaced by ALSA. A successor to OSS3 called OSS4 is available but plays virtually no role on Linux and is not supported in standard kernels or by any of the relevant distributions. Notice how for the very reason that OSS4 is superior to ALSA and can do everything it can, he deliberately ignores it. The OSS API is very low-level, based around direct kernel interfacing using ioctl()s. It is hence awkward to use [citation needed] and can practically not be virtualized for usage on non-kernel audio systems like sound servers (such as PulseAudio) or user-space sound drivers (such as Bluetooth or FireWire audio). OSS3's timing model cannot properly be mapped to software sound servers at all, and is also problematic on non-PCI hardware such as USB audio. Also, OSS does not do sample type conversion, remapping or resampling if necessary. This means that clients that properly want to support OSS need to include a complete set of converters/remappers/resamplers for the case when the hardware does not natively support the requested sampling parameters. With modern sound cards it is very common to support only S32LE samples at 48KHz and nothing else. If an OSS client assumes it can always play back S16LE samples at 44.1KHz it will thus fail. OSS3 is portable to other Unix-like systems, various differences however apply. OSS also doesn't support surround sound and other functionality of modern sounds systems properly. OSS should be considered obsolete and not be used in new applications. ALSA and PulseAudio have limited LD_PRELOAD-based compatibility with OSS. Some of these arguments apply to OSS3, others are just plain wrong. None of them apply to OSS4. Basing your argument against something on a significantly old version is a logical fallacy.
OSS should not be used for new programs.
I don't hate anything or anyone. I just don't think OSS4 is a serious option, especially not on Linux. On Linux, it is also completely redundant due to ALSA. This completely ignores the fact that OSS4 is obviously superior because it is cross-platform, working on a wide range of Unix-like operating systems, and not just ALSA, the Linux-only sound system that reeks of not-invented-here syndrome.