Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] SuSE 9.2 + pwc

[Dennis <dennismail gmx net>]

Hi Pablo!

Short Answer: You can get it running. But I suppose it might be useful 
for you to know the background of the whole thing.
The author of the pwc-driver hat an NDA with Philips, so the driver 
itself could be described as a two part software: One part with code 
under the GPL, the other part was the binary driver (so no source code 
available for this part). The responsable maintainers of the Kernel 
didn´t want no more binary code it in (especially for the "wrapper" - 
which made it bossible to execute binary code), so they kicked the 
wrapper out (as far as I followed the whole discussion).
The pwc-developer answered quite direct: He said that end-users didn´t 
care about the discussion in the background, they just want to get their 
hardware working. And after all, the device itself is Philips 
intellectual property, so they have the right to do whatever they want 
with the code - in this case, Philips decided not to release the driver 
under the GPL (which means source code in this context), but to give 
someone the opportunity to do it via an NDA (Non disclosure agreement - 
which means that the author gets details about the interna from philips, 
but isn´t allowed to tell anybody about them).

But the question which remains is: How to get the Webcam working? I just 
googled around and (as I have heard about a news solution), I found this:
http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/linux/webcam.html
This is the new solution which doesn´t seem to need the binary part of 
the old solution any more. On this page, it´s described for a Logitech 
Webcam Pro 4000, but all other webcams from the old pwc should be 
supported (I think).

I hope that you understand that I think it was neccessary to explain the 
background of the pwc - and that I helped you!

Greets,
Mike

Pablo Ortúzar schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> I have SuSE 9.2 installed, with an idle Philips ToUcam Pro webcam. Kernel is 
> 2-6-8 -24. I believe I read somewhere that the pwc module is indeed there, in 
> the kernel: should this be true, does anyone know how to get it working? 
> Thanks.