Re: rtl2832u support

Maxim Levitsky
2010-11-20T22:38:02Z

On Fri, 2010-11-19 at 09:36 +0200, Maxim Levitsky wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-11-17 at 12:15 +0100, Damjan Marion wrote:
> > On Oct 19, 2010, at 10:27 PM, Hans Verkuil wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, October 19, 2010 21:26:13 Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> > >> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Damjan Marion <damjan.marion@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> Hi,
> > >>>
> > >>> Is there any special reason why driver for rtl2832u DVB-T receiver chipset is not included into v4l-dvb?
> > >>>
> > >>> Realtek published source code under GPL:
> > >>>
> > >>> MODULE_AUTHOR("Realtek");
> > >>> MODULE_DESCRIPTION("Driver for the RTL2832U DVB-T / RTL2836 DTMB USB2.0 device");
> > >>> MODULE_VERSION("1.4.2");
> > >>> MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
> > >>
> > >> Unfortunately, in most cases much more is "required" than having a
> > >> working driver under the GPL in order for it to be accepted upstream.
> > >> In some cases it can mean a developer spending a few hours cleaning up
> > >> whitespace and indentation, and in other cases it means significant
> > >> work to the driver is required.
> > >>
> > >> The position the LinuxTV team has taken is that they would rather have
> > >> no upstream driver at all than to have a driver which doesn't have the
> > >> right indentation or other aesthetic problems which has no bearing on
> > >> how well the driver actually works.
> > >>
> > >> This is one of the big reasons KernelLabs has tens of thousands of
> > >> lines of code adding support for a variety of devices with many happy
> > >> users (who are willing to go through the trouble to compile from
> > >> source), but the code cannot be accepted upstream. I just cannot find
> > >> the time to do the "idiot work".
> > >
> > > Bullshit. First of all these rules are those of the kernel community
> > > as a whole and *not* linuxtv as such, and secondly you can upstream such
> > > drivers in the staging tree. If you want to move it out of staging, then
> > > it will take indeed more work since the quality requirements are higher
> > > there.
> >
> >
> > Do we have a common agreement that this driver can go to staging as-is?
> >
> > If yes, I have patch ready, just need to know where to send it (It is around 1 MB).

I would like to volunteer to clean up the driver for eventual merge.
At least I can start right away with low handing fruit.

I have took the driver from

http://www.turnovfree.net/~stybla/linux/v4l-dvb/lv5tdlx/20101102_RTL2832_2836_2840_LINUX+RC-Dongle.rar

And it looks very recent, so that means that Realtek actually continues
to develop it.

Greg KH, maybe you know how to contact Realteck to figure out the best
strategy in handling this code.

Meanwhile, lets put that into staging.
(The above driver doesn't compile due to changes in RC code, but it can
be removed (that what I did for now) or ported to new rc-core which what
I will do very soon).

Best regards,
Maxim Levitsky