Linux driver model [LWN.net]

Linux driver model

Posted Aug 28, 2004 0:05 UTC (Sat) by subhasroy (subscriber, #325)
In reply to: Linux driver model by piman
Parent article: Linux loses the Philips webcam driver

Of course I also believe Linus has right to keep "binary crap" out of his kernel.

I just hope for a good technical solution and I don't know why it should be impossible to come to come up with such a solution.

The vendor-supplied proprietary stuff should make use of the user-space as much as possible. Loading third party binaries to kernel makes it vulnerable to instability.

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Linux driver model

Posted Aug 28, 2004 17:28 UTC (Sat) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

Well, the one fellow with the technical know-how and specs from Philips has refused to develop the driver anymore. If someone else wanted to pick up the userspace decoding project, they'd have to convince Philips, and also sign another NDA. The first part is often difficult, and few people would agree to the latter.

A good solution would be for owners of the camera to write Philips and ask them to make the specs freely available.

Reverse engineering is an alternative to signing an NDA

Posted Aug 29, 2004 18:05 UTC (Sun) by hamjudo (subscriber, #363) [Link]

The existing not quite free drivers discouraged work on a truly free driver. Now that they're out of the way, we can start working on a free driver.

It's been done before. In November 5th, 1995 Russell Nelson set up a website and mailing list for reverse engineering another camera that lacked free documentation. Here is the announcement. I remember testing camera code with a baby in my lap.

Reverse engineering just the decompressor is a smaller task than reverse engineering the whole camera.

I haven't read all the referenced postings yet. Has anyone started on such a project? I can help test, but I'm no project manager.