During the 2.5 development cycle, ALSA, the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture was merged into the Linux kernel. At that time, support for OSS, the Open Sound System was marked as deprecated. A recent thread on the lkml discussed the future of OSS, questioning if it is worth fixing issues with now deprecated OSS drivers.

On one side of the debate, some feel that it doesn't make sense to throw away a functional subsystem with willing maintainers, especially when there are some soundcards that are currently only supported by OSS. On the other side, some feel it doesn't make sense to support two code bases that accomplish the same thing, suggesting all effort currently invested in fixing OSS drivers should be refocused to writing and fixing ALSA drivers. Some of the advantages that ALSA has over OSS are listed here.

Those still using OSS will be happy to know that the Open Sound System will all but certainly always be part of the 2.6 stable kernel. As for the future, it is quite likely that OSS will be removed during the 2.7 development phase, and that ALSA will be the one remaining sound subsystem. Much of the thread follows, offering interesting arguments for both side of this debate.