From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267528AbUH0Tna (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:43:30 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267472AbUH0Tna (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:43:30 -0400 Received: from smtp105.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com ([206.190.36.83]:6272 "HELO smtp105.rog.mail.re2.yahoo.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S267528AbUH0TYe (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:24:34 -0400 From: Shawn Starr Organization: sh0n.net To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Termination of the Philips Webcam Driver (pwc Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:24:35 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200408271524.35381.shawn.starr@rogers.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Perhaps it's time we just fork the driver and reverse engineer the PWCX archive and end this madness. If Philips doesn't want to release their code that's fine but there's nothing stopping us from doing it ourselves. P.S, Philips if you do read this mailing list. You certainly didnt make many friends. if Adaptec can do it, you can too. Any takers? ;-) Shawn. Subject: Re: Termination of the Philips Webcam Driver (pwc) From: Craig Milo Rogers Date: 2004-08-27 18:55:41 Message-ID: <20040827185541.GC24018 () isi ! edu> [Download message RAW] On 04.08.27, Linus Torvalds wrote: > But Greg is right - we don't keep hooks that are there purely for binary > drivers. If somebody wants a binary driver, it had better be a whole > independent thing - and it won't be distributed with the kernel. If you read Nemosoft's final driver release (which has been reposted, and of which I now have a copy), you can see that he was rewriting his code to move the proprietary codecs out of the kernel entirely, and into user-mode libraries to be linked with consenting applications -- he was quite sensitive to the kernel issues involved. Of course, this is still nowhere as good as a wholly open source solution, a position with which I think Nemosoft concurs, based on his messages. Linus, would you adress a moot issue, please? If Nemosoft (or someone else) were to release some of the codecs in question as one or more open-source loadable kernel modules (similar to sound card support modules in the ALSA system), while other codecs remain binary-only loadable kernel modules (distributed outside the kernel, but using the same hook as the open-source loadable modules), would the pwc driver and codec extension hook be allowable, in your opinion, please? Craig Milo Rogers -