Re: Termination of the Philips Webcam Driver (pwc)

Craig Milo Rogers
2004-08-27T18:57:31Z

On 04.08.27, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> But Greg is right - we don't keep hooks that are there purely for binary
> drivers. If somebody wants a binary driver, it had better be a whole
> independent thing - and it won't be distributed with the kernel.

If you read Nemosoft's final driver release (which has been
reposted, and of which I now have a copy), you can see that he was
rewriting his code to move the proprietary codecs out of the kernel
entirely, and into user-mode libraries to be linked with consenting
applications -- he was quite sensitive to the kernel issues involved.
Of course, this is still nowhere as good as a wholly open source
solution, a position with which I think Nemosoft concurs, based on his
messages.

Linus, would you adress a moot issue, please? If Nemosoft (or
someone else) were to release some of the codecs in question as one or
more open-source loadable kernel modules (similar to sound card
support modules in the ALSA system), while other codecs remain
binary-only loadable kernel modules (distributed outside the kernel,
but using the same hook as the open-source loadable modules), would
the pwc driver and codec extension hook be allowable, in your opinion,
please?

Craig Milo Rogers