Re: [linux-dvb] Fwd: HVR2250 Status - Where am I?

[Steven Toth <stoth@linuxtv.org>]

Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 1:38 PM, John Drescher <drescherjm@gmail.com> wrote:
>> So now (with my donation) we have him working at $1/hour assuming that
>> it takes only 100 hours..
> 
> Well, this assumes that it would only take 100 hours, of which given
> the complexity of the device, it will probably take more than twice
> that (since it's a PCI device and the estimates I gave are for USB
> devices).
> 
> If nothing else, it offers some insight as to how valuable the work of
> people like Steven is (he has written a whole bunch of different
> drivers).  It also demonstrates one reason there are so few developers
> willing to do this sort of work.  Getting a developer to donate a
> couple of evening's worth of time is pretty easy.  Getting them to
> make a commitment of every day for the next two to three months is
> quite harder.

It takes a massive amount of time from all of the core developers to keep the 
v4l-dvb tree up to date and to add new functionality.

Adding a new style of board to an existing driver can take a couple of hours 
with testing. It's bread a butter maintenance task.

However, adding a brand new bridge driver to the kernel can take 6 months just 
for the first release, and is then slowly improved over the next 12-24 months.

It's a large task.

- Steve