Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Philips camera support discontinued?

[Rikard Johnels <rikjoh norweb se>]

On Friday 27 August 2004 09.29, Johnny Strom wrote:
> Conrad Beckert wrote:
> > The situation is completely nuts as Philips cameras
> > are the most widespread ones - at least here in
> > Germany. Our big electronics retailers - Mediamarkt
> > and Saturn  - have virtually only Philips cams and
> > definitely not supported Logitechs etc. on stock.
> >
> > That excludes a lot of people from videoconferencing -
> > in my opinion the most widespread webcam application.
> > I have a Philips webcam too - recently upgraded so I
> > couldn't justify before myself buying an other model.
> >
> > The problem seems philosophic - and the Kernel
> > maintainers seem (at least as I can conclude from what
> > I've read) behave in a fundamendalistic way. On the
> > other hand, offendedly redrawing from the scene and
> > locking oneself in the bathroom doesn't help either.
> >
> > As it is now, everyone - except the Evel Guy From
> > Redmond (TM) - looses. The reputation of Linux as a
> > system that provides freedom for it's users, suffers.
> >
> > Without getting into the discussion of free, "libre"
> > ...: I used to have the freedom to have my videophone
> > on Linux with my Philips cam - and now it is gone.
> > This kind of things I usually attribute to closed shop
> > products. (not even Windows would do that)
> >
> > Probably - we here in the Gnomemeeting forum - should
> > find a solution. Someone (I would try - please help)
> > should convince both the Kernel crowds and the driver
> > developer (forgot his name, sorry) to get back to
> > table.
> >
> > I could imagine a compromise:
> > - The kernel gets both driver (pwc and pwcx) and (non
> > standard) hooks back for the time beeing.
> > - For the next version (2.8 or whatever) a standard,
> > well documented way of including closed source drivers
> > into the kernel should be developed and communicated
> > well to the community. That interface should be
> > generic enough to accomodate anything (perhaps it
> > exists yet)
> > - The pwc driver should be converted to this new
> > interface standard
> > - Meanwhile pwc should be available as it is.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
> Well again to not get into this situation again so should we all
> try to get the pwcx code GPL'd. So anybody here knows how to contact at
> Philips please give us this info now.
>
> > Conrad
> >
> >>The kernel provides an interface where modules can
> >>hook ; a quite
> >>generic interface, that is used by all modules
> >>(libre or not). The libre
> >>pwc module creates its own hooking interface, just
> >>for the non-libre
> >>pwcx: there is code in a GPL module that is there to
> >>enable a non-libre
> >>module, and only that module.
> >
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Why not simply call Phillips headquarters and ask?
Get a pointer to the tech's dept. and then play it from there?


-- 
         /Rikard

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rikard Johnels          email   : rikjoh norweb se
                        Web     : http://www.rikjoh.com
                        Mob     : +46 735 05 51 01

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