Re: [PATCH 1/7] Adding empia base driver

["Markus Rechberger" <mrechberger@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 7:35 PM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab
<mchehab@infradead.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:59:00 +0200
> "Markus Rechberger" <mrechberger@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>     em2880-dvb:
>>     * supporting the digital part of Empia based devices, which
>> includes ATSC, ISDB-T and DVB-T
>>
>>     em28xx-aad.c:
>>     * alternative audio driver, can be used instead of em28xx-audio if
>> alsa is not available
>>     or not compiled into the kernel, it provides a raw interface to
>> the PCM samples
>>
>>     em28xx-audio.c:
>>     * em28xx alsa driver and audio driver for FM radio
>>
>>     em28xx-audioep.c:
>>     * em28xx alsa driver for devices which are set to vendor specific
>> audio on interface 1,
>>     in that case snd-usb-audio will not attach to the interface and
>> em28xx-audioep will be needed
>>
>>     em28xx-cards.c:
>>     * card definition and initial setup of devices.
>>
>>     em28xx-core.c:
>>     * core videohandling and VBI frame slicing
>>
>>     em28xx-i2c.c:
>>     * i2c setup and GPIO setup handling of the devices (including
>> em2888 based ones)
>>
>>     em28xx-input.c:
>>     * currently mostly disabled since the linuxtv input handling is
>> broken by design and racy
>>
>>     em28xx-keymaps.c:
>>     * keymap references of some remotes (could be merged into
>> ir-common, although as mentioned
>>     this should be in userland done by lirc).
>>
>>     em28xx-video.c:
>>     * inode handling for analog TV, radio and VBI, also some device probing
>>
>>     em28xx-webcam.c:
>>     * videology webcam specific i2c commands
>
> NACK.
>
> There's already a driver for em28xx. Be welcome sending incremental patches to
> improve, like other developers do. But another driver for the same chip would
> just create a mess.
>

the description right above shows up what the current driver is
missing, excluding the bugfixes.
Technical reasons why the source is basically kept in the structure as
it is, is eg. higher backward
compatibility without having to update the whole system. See eeePC
packages which are available
from some vendors. The driver seamlessly works with the rest which is
installed there, without
any framework upgrade.

Most users are currently using the drivers from mcentral.de since it's
more stable and very
well tested over the last 3 years. It was basically your decision to
not merge it back then
http://mcentral.de/v4l-dvb/

I pulled out the source and moved it together then and worked on
additional device support.

http://mcentral.de/hg/~mrec/em28xx-new/shortlog
There are more than 200 changesets pointing out how it evolved, if
someone wants to have an indepth
view about it. Bugreports and patches have been posted to the em28xx
mailinglist where people worked
on it, including enduser applications.

The xc3028 as it is in the kernel is based on leaked and partly
reverse engineered information.
I know that because I was also CC'ed with the leaked driver information.

The Xceive drivers which I submitted are the latest versions from
Xceive addressing several bugs,
you might not have access to their changelog.

Before continuing any discussion the sourcecode and every statement I
made for those patchsets
should be commented, otherwise a discussion won't go anywhere.

br,
Markus