Comment 17 for bug 1296017

 > With all due respect, I want to report a bug in ALSA, and I don't understand how joining a developers mailing list will further
 > that goal.

Well, if you want the bug fixed (and not only reported), go where the developers are.

 > The initial link I was given (https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/bugtrackers/alsa-mantis) took me to a page without any "report
 > bug" action I could find. All roads link to "https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug" - a dead end.

Aha. This bug tracker has been discontinued, because nobody had time to look after it. I now updated the launchpad page to reflect that. Thanks for the heads up.

 > Please keep in mind I know very little about the whole Linux world, so where to go, and who to contact about a driver problem
 > is... a problem :)

Yeah, it can be bewildering. As a general rule of thumb:

 1) contact your Linux distribution first, in your case, that would be OpenELEC. Do they have a mailinglist, a bug tracker, etc? You might want to do a little research first, see if other bugs reported are answered/taken care of, or if it all seems dead.

 2) the people at your Linux distribution might advise you to contact upstream, in your case ALSA. If ALSA had a working bug tracker, that would be the place to go. They don't, which is why I recommended you to try the alsa-devel mailinglist instead. That said, that is not a guarantee for success either - almost every project could use more qualified people. Sometimes the right few people that can solve your problem are just busy doing something else.

(Note to people googling this five years from now :-) Remember that these things can change rapidly. Maybe in five years there'll be another recommended way to contact the ALSA developers.)

But hey - welcome to Linux! :-) I hope you'll find some community, place, distro etc where you find some nice people to collaborate with, about interesting things. Enjoy!