Kernel Maintainer Kills Philips USB Camera Support

outanowhere writes "The author of the Philips webcams kernel module has thrown in the towel and quit providing the pwc and pwcx kernel modules which make using Philips-based USB cameras such as those from Logitech and Philips possible with Linux. According to the author, the last straw was when a kernel maintainer changed his pwc module to make using the binary-only pwcx compression module impossible. It is a victory for obsessive kernel-purists but a major loss for all Linux users."

Comments

By the way

[gazbo]

For all of you who wonder what we mean when we say "zealots make it hard for businesses to take F/OSS seriously", this is what we mean.

Re:By the way

[psavo]

For all of you who wonder what we mean when we say "zealots make it hard for businesses to take F/OSS seriously", this is what we mean.

Nope. This is eating own dogfood, having a stance and keeping it. Businesses can be sure that there's no fucking around rules of linux development. It's either playing by the rules or not playing at all.

Re:By the way

[MS_is_the_best]

Despite the somewhat suggestive text from 'outanowhere' the truth is different I guess. Philips does not want to support linux, by providing a kernel driver for their device. That is their choice. This is and stays the main problem.

Now, someone ported a binary driver to linux. Very nice from this guy, but in the long run this will hurt linux (AND linux users). Manufacturers are just weighing what's the penalty and the profit for bringing out a driver (binary or source), no driver or support somenone who writes a driver (binary or source). Now, if the use of binary drivers is discouraged, there will be more source drivers becoming available (but less drivers, some manufacturers are not willing to open their source). However in the long run (and linux marketshare will help) manufacturers have to support linux. The more other manufacturers have open source drivers, the less trouble they have doing the same.

Of course you can say all things about manufacturers 'not being able to open' (nvidia binary drivers cannot be opened, because of rules, etc.), but that is just not true. Nvidia has no advantage of opening their secrets (yes, their competitors will take advantage of this) and therefore they are not doing it (they lose perhaps a handfull of users). A perfect business decision in the light of most linux users using a binary driver. However if ATI IS providing (this is an example) the source, Nvidia has to look different to the situation, especially if, say 20% of the users uses ATI because of this and if ATI is also 'giving up' their secrets.

All this is just negotiation in the end and we should not give up already and accept binary drivers. That is just like a salesman selling televisions for 1 dollar, because that is bidded first.

No, i am not obsessed, just differently minded (and not native, sorry for my language).

Re:By the way

[GregChant]

Manufacturers are just weighing what's the penalty and the profit for bringing out a driver (binary or source), no driver or support somenone who writes a driver (binary or source).

Do you have any evidence that this is the case, or is this just pure speculation?

Now, if the use of binary drivers is discouraged, there will be more source drivers becoming available (but less drivers, some manufacturers are not willing to open their source).

This is wholly fallacious. There is nothing to suggest that by blocking binary-only development, more source will become available. This is a pipe-dream of the F/OSS utopia.

However in the long run (and linux marketshare will help) manufacturers have to support linux.

Again, fallacious; again, a pipe-dream of the F/OSS community.

The more other manufacturers have open source drivers, the less trouble they have doing the same.

Do you have any evidence that this is the case?

Nvidia has no advantage of opening their secrets (yes, their competitors will take advantage of this) and therefore they are not doing it (they lose perhaps a handfull of users). A perfect business decision in the light of most linux users using a binary driver. However if ATI IS providing (this is an example) the source, Nvidia has to look different to the situation, especially if, say 20% of the users uses ATI because of this and if ATI is also 'giving up' their secrets.

You ought to have stopped after the first sentence. There is no monetary advantage to opening source or revealing trade secrets: the software industry isn't high school. If Janie (i.e. ATI) is smoking the marijuana (opens the source to its drivers), it doesn't mean it's okay for Bobby (nVidia) to do the same; it just means Janie (ATI) is foolish.

As several people have said, the consumer cares about what "just works". They don't care about software ideals, as evidenced by Microsoft's 95% market share. The software industry is inherently capitalistic, and will follow the money. If the consumer wants something that just works, and the F/OSS community isn't going to give it to them, they are going to pay money for it. This is where you will find the software industry: not out trying to "play by the F/OSS rules".

Re:By the way

[MS_is_the_best]

Yep, I agree with you. However about 'the evidence' you want. I just know business, they (actually we), just weigh in the advantages against the disadvantages (usually involves calculation of money).

There is nothing to suggest that by blocking binary-only development, more source will become available. This is a pipe-dream of the F/OSS utopia.
No, it is just common sense. The push on, say Nvidia, to open their source is larger if binary drivers are not possible. Two things are important in this situation, marketshare and large customers. Large customers can perhaps (now under NDA) already get the source, lose of market share (if net loss of opening drivers is smaller than loss of profit by a smaller share in market they will just open of course).

However I tend to agree with you that when all binary drivers are forbidden and the manufacturers are offered a choice, leave the linux market or open their code, much much more will choose the first. That is because the business situation is like this at the moment. But some will not. (for example the NIC company specialized in linux clustering etc.).

If Janie (i.e. ATI) is smoking the marijuana (opens the source to its drivers), it doesn't mean it's okay for Bobby (nVidia) to do the same; it just means Janie (ATI) is foolish.
Companies are sometimes behaving more emotional than factual. For example if some major top 500 companies buy Linux licenses from SCO, a lot will follow. Their bosses will say, 'hey if BMW buys a license we have to do that also, because they have good lawyers'. Without even checking theirselves. This happens a lot (too much).

Re:By the way

[MS_is_the_best]

If Janie (i.e. ATI) is smoking the marijuana (opens the source to its drivers), it doesn't mean it's okay for Bobby (nVidia) to do the same; it just means Janie (ATI) is foolish.
To reply to myself: I just thought of a better example to show this stuff DOES happen. Just look at the support list of the ALSA project (http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc). They have a history of strongly discouraging binary drivers and it pays of. Yes, some manufacturers are unwilling to open, but a lot fall for the argument, everybody gives us information, we have already creative drivers etc.). Just look at the mailing-lists.

Re:By the way

[orthogonal]

Nope. This is eating own dogfood, having a stance and keeping it. Businesses can be sure that there's no fucking around rules of linux development. It's either playing by the rules or not playing at all.

Um, whose rules?

If open source is about choice, I've just lost the choice to use both Phillips-based webcams and linux. Now my choice is one or the other.

But if by "rules" you mean that the linux developers are making me -- and many others -- bear the costs of the developers' ideological fights, then say so. Explain to me honestly that linux isn't about "choice", it's about forcing anyone who wants to play with linux to license everything under the GPL (or BSD, or release to the public domain).

This is little different that the "anti-spam" campaigners who -- admittedly with virtuous goals -- blacklist email from domains which can't avoid sharing an upstream provider with a spammer. The blacklisters know full well that many of the blacklisted domains have nothing to do with spammers -- and in fact they count on that -- because they hope that by injuring innocent third parties, those third parties will demand that their ISPs stop hosting the spammers (or more often, that their ISPs upstream's upstream will stop hosting a client which sub-leases to another company which hosts a spammer).

The kernel developers apparently hope that we will all now boycott Phillips and companies like Logitech which use the Phillips chip-set, and this in turn will forceforcing Phillips and inconveniencing thousands (millions?) of end-users?

If the GPL such a terrible idea that it can only work when people are forced to use it, maybe it's time to re-think the GPL.

Or maybe the kernel developers cold figure out a more direct avenue of action, that doesn't inconvenience third parties: imagine a GPL that read, "everybody can use linux (and apache, and gcc, and PHP) except Phillips. End-users wouldn't be inconvenienced, but Phillips -- well, I'm guessing they probably use quite a few linux machines for development, and gcc on them, and probably an apache webserver or three.

Now, of course, that's not going to happen, not least because the developers get a real thrill from listing all the companies that use linux, and threatening to take it away from one company would cause a whole lot of companies to reconsider their use of Open Source tools.

But a similar bludgeon is being wielded on the common home and hobbyist end-user here. And that's fine: the kernel developers have every right to write the kernel the way they want, and to use it for political purposes if they so choose. But then don't come to me and tell me linux is about "choice". Be honest, and tell me linux is about pushing an ideological agenda.

Re:By the way

[nathanh]

If open source is about choice, I've just lost the choice to use both Phillips-based webcams and linux. Now my choice is one or the other.

It is about choice. You can choose to put the USB hook back and maintain the Philips webcam driver indefinitely in a separate kernel tree. The current kernel developers have the choice to drop that USB hook and tell the Philips webcam guy to find another way. The Philips webcam guy has the choice to reimplement the Philips webcam driver in userspace using libusb. Though as it is, he chose to have a hissy fit. His choice.

The mistake you've made is in thinking that "choice" is equivalent to "kernel developers give you all the options and you just choose a precanned solution from a checklist". That's not how it works. Get off your lazy butt and make things happen. Stop complaining that the kernel developers aren't doing things the way you want them to be done. That's their choice to make, not yours. Exercise your freedom of choice but don't expect others to do the work for you.

Re:By the way

[squiggleslash]

If open source is about choice, I've just lost the choice to use both Phillips-based webcams and linux. Now my choice is one or the other.

Open source is about source code availability and the freedom to use that source code. It has nothing to do with "choice", it's just choice - the right to use something other than what a proprietary software vendor has told you to do - is one of the many, many, benefits.

But if by "rules" you mean that the linux developers are making me -- and many others -- bear the costs of the developers' ideological fights, then say so. Explain to me honestly that linux isn't about "choice", it's about forcing anyone who wants to play with linux to license everything under the GPL (or BSD, or release to the public domain).

Actually, no. If you want the camera driver to be part of the Linux kernel, then, yeah, you have to abide by the GPL both directly and in spirit. If you want to have a camera driver in userland, however, available as an option to the Philips driver writer and specifically rejected for, what I can only see as, ideological reasons, then you're free to do so.

Whatever the case, proprietary software is proprietary. You can't say "The great advantage of Linux is that it's open source!" in one breath and then say "Well, actually, you can't do anything with this camera driver" in the other.

Philips, not the various Linux contributors, has made the decision not to allow the free flow of information about how their devices work. It is Philips who are responsible for this, not the Linux contributors. They are the people who are restricting your freedoms. Address your complaints to them.

Re:By the way

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about choice. That's the problem. Sure, "Open Source" may be about choice, but "Free Software" isn't.

I'll explain.

The GPL, under which the Linux kernel is released, is about using the idea of copyright to restrict one thing that copyright has traditionally been used for: controlling what others do with the work.

In a sense, the GPL and "Free Software" are about restrictions. The whole idea is to restrict the copyright-holders ability to control what others do with the work.

On a certain level, that provides greater choice and freedom the the users of the GPL'd work. But it doesn't provide greater choice and freedom for the holder of the copyright, and it restricts your ability to just do whatever the hell you want with the work.

You can't modify it, add to it, distribute it or sell it if you don't allow others to do the same. If there is any piece of code attached to it, then in must be licensed similarly.

The guy's having a snit. The kernel maintainers don't have a responsibility to make Linux big or wonderful or a consumer-oriented system. They have a responsibility to the GPL, and that's it.

By the way, the kernel *is* "about forcing anyone who wants to play with linux to license everything under the GPL"

That's the point of the GPL. You can't get around it. If you want to play in the Kernel, you gotta open your source.

This isn't about convenience, it's about the law. How's this: if they relax their stance on this, then it provides legal fodder for the SCO's of the world to say "See! The GPL can't be enforced! They're trying to get around it!"

The worst thing, THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING, that can happen to Linux or F/OSS right now is to have the GPL legally invalidated by those who use it not being "true" to it.

The bludgeon is being used by the person who refuses to play--"if the kernel maintainers won't do it my way, then I'm leaving, boo-hoo!"

Re:By the way

[Enrico Pulatzo]

So you have a choice, be practical and don't use the camera with Linux, or be shackled with the responsibility of maintaining a module across any kernel version you may ever come across.

Ain't freedom grand? As with most things in life, freedom is only available to the elite few that possess enough understanding to be free in the first place. I understand that I'm free to fork the source, but if I lack the knowledge necessary to hack on the kernel what good is it to me to fork?

Re:By the way

[V. Mole]

There is no monetary advantage to opening source or revealing trade secrets.

Sure there is. I buy only hardware that is supported by open source drivers. Philips, Nvidia, and ATI are in the hardware business. If they want to sell hardware to people like me, they'll have to supply the docs. I'm not asking them to supply drivers, although that would be nice. I'm asking them to make the docs available, so that others can write drivers.

The Philips case is especially absurd. I'm prepared to believe that ATI and Nvidia have stuff in their drivers that gives them a competitive advantage. But some dinky little compressor? Give me a break. I bet it's only proprietary because it's some crappy little algortithm that it would embarass them to release.

"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[Fizzl]

Yes, all Linux users who care about that particular module.

Itt's not like everyone in the world own a Philips USB camera.

Yes, yes. I know what's the point. Making it harder to include binary carbage in the kernel makes it harder to provide modules for proprietary hardware solutions.

But in the long run, do you want to have third party binary carbage in YOUR KERNEL?
No way to check out what's in there. Except perhaps reverse engineering, which isn't an option to everyone. Programming is hard. Reverse engineering is harder.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[AmiMoJo]

"But in the long run, do you want to have third party binary carbage in YOUR KERNEL?"

I think you are missing the point. Not every user cares what is in their kernel, much the same was as Windows users don't. They just want stuff to work.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[megalomaniacs4u]

Yes, yes. I know what's the point. Making it harder to include binary carbage in the kernel makes it harder to provide modules for proprietary hardware solutions.

Forward to the past!

Yes, binary only modules are unacceptable in principle. Unfortunately unless you want to head back the days when most hardware wouldn't work under Linux they are a necessary evil.

Of course the zealots who want pure open-source will eventually have to face the fact that some companies will never open-source anything or live in eternal denial.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[ColaMan]

The thing is , if you *want* binary third-party carbage in your kernel, well now *you cannot do it at all*
If you don't want third-party binary carbage in your kernel, well, you don't load the module that contains it.

People want their stuff to work. If they need to load a binary module to get their stuff to work, then they'll generally do that, zealots be damned.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[MS_is_the_best]

Not every user cares what is in their kernel, much the same was as Windows users don't.

True, but this is short-sighted. The binary drivers WILL give problems in the long run for the users. (Microsoft knows this, windows is unstable with unstable drivers, therefore they emphasize a lot on signing of the drivers by Microsoft!)

It remembers me of the feauture bloat of win95-win200 path. The users wanted these feautures (being able to do all kind of things) and didn't care about the security impact. Microsoft listened to this and now they are paying for their short-term strategy. About half of the home PC's are infected with spyware, zombies, viri, spam bots etc. and this is something the users DO not want.

It is a bit naive to blame the users 100% for this, Microsoft has told them everything would be easy and this is the result. (They are fixing the problems fast I think).

*n[iu]x developers cared more about security (were the zealots back then) and kept their OS secure. Know this pays off. Hopefully we will again be the zealots and take the path that works best in the long run.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[squiggleslash]

...which it still could. It's a USB camera driver, it doesn't have to be a part of the kernel. Indeed, the guy says it himself:

I've considered the alternative, taking PWC/PWCX out of the kernel and supporting it solely as an add-on module, but rejected it. It would mean a demotion of PWC to a 2nd rank module, and probably quite a bit more work to maintain. Also, PWC would not work out-of-the-box anymore, while it does now. That would be acceptable if it's rarely used module, but that is not the case and it would probably confuse a lot of people.

I find this hilarious. He, and the submitter, have decided to attack the kernel maintainers for being ideological, when actually they're just trying to ensure the kernel remains legal for redistribution (it's licensed under the GPL, after all.) There's a route open to them that allows them to make a restricted product work under Linux, albeit in a slightly restricted way, but they're not taking it because it's horrid and PWC would be demoted to being second rank.

Well diddums! Complain to frickin' Philips then! They're the people being arseholes here by requiring people who want to make their bought, paid-for, hardware work under alternative operating systems sign NDAs. In the meantime, there are alternatives, the authors can still produce tools that will make their cameras "just work", it's going to be harder, but that's the downside of getting a proprietary device.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[nathanh]

I think you are missing the point. Not every user cares what is in their kernel, much the same was as Windows users don't. They just want stuff to work.

True. Not every users cares. However in Linux land it's the kernel developers who make all the decisions. So what the kernel developers care about is all that matters. The most influential kernel developers (eg, Linus, Alan) have been consistent in their stance that they will not go out of their way to support binary modules. If a binary module breaks then tough luck.

If the kernel developers are wrong then the market will sort things out. One of the distros will produce a distribution with the USB hook patched back in. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[albalbo]

Then people shouldn't buy cards which require proprietary drivers for bizarre reasons; there are plenty which do not.

People should vote with their feet, and the fact is that free software drivers are better in the long run than proprietary drivers. Not withstanding the fact that they are commonly more modern in design and better written, they are also more likely to be portable across architectures. If Linux runs on PowerPC, but all the drivers are proprietary binary x86, well, it kind of makes it pointless.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[zenyu]

For instance, some of the chips allow you to jack up the power beyond what the FCC allows. Which the binary driver does not, which is why the FCC allows the manufacturer to distribute the thing in the first place.


Simply not true. You can transmit 1 Watt with 802.11b in the US, but the most powerful cards can only be pumped up to about a 1/4 Watt. What you can do is tune to a different frequency on some of these cards, which is you can't do without a license of some sort from your government. But the thing is you can use channels 1 to 14 on these cards with the binary drivers which means you can break the rules in just about any Western country since each licenses only a subset of those channels. But, you can also install your own antenna which will take you outside the rules.

With WiMax it will be a bigger problem, since you will probably be required to implement a serious power back-off algorithm. But I highly doubt liability would attach to the manufacturer if someone hacked their drivers to go outside the rules, liablity does not seem to attach for semi-standard antenna ports. The real problem is that these companies are licensing not just their firmware but their driver software as well and don't want to put up the $$$ to get a GPL license on that. Kernel devs understand this and just ask for the specs for interacting with the firmware, the manufacturer could have gotten this included for free when they bought the firmware & driver software. But if they didn't they now have to pay more for it. Hopefully they learn their lesson for next time, being able to say you added 5-10% to sales by simply adding a free rider to a licensing agreement gets you kudos at any company (and easy to survey for too, linux&bsd users know which OS they are using.)

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[Frantactical Fruke]

The binary driver for the Aureal Vortex soundcard stopped working when distributions started using GCC 3 for kernel compiles. What can we do? Nothing. Aureal went bankrupt in 2000.
A binary driver means planned obsolescence for your hardware as soon as the manufacturer loses interest.
Oh, I'm sure you simply dump your machines yearly and get a new one, but those old clunkers are not defective in any way - or wouldn't be, if their driver came with source that we could update. There's your ecological argument for open source.

Re:"but a major loss for all Linux users."

[Anonymous Coward]

So buy an IBM laptop if you want to run Linux. That laptop was completely useless to you because it was designed for Windows.

You have to put your money where your mouth is. If you want a linux laptop, you GET a linux laptop. You don't bitch that your Windows-only laptop doesn't run linux.

This way there is a monetary incentive for these companies to support linux & the GPL.

Sheesh...

[nathanh]

It is a victory for obsessive kernel-purists but a major loss for all Linux users.

Talk about flagrantly showing your bias. How about we rephrase that last sentence as...

It is a victory for kernel developers who do not have to waste their time with crash dumps from kernels linked to binary modules, for users who benefit from a more stable kernel, and for the advancement of Linux because it is not held back by archaic binary interfaces.

This is only a loss to those silly people who think that their $50 web cam is so damn important that all of the kernel developers should support binary interfaces to cater for undocumented video hardware. The USB hook for binary modules was a real detriment to the USB subsystem. It was taken out for technical reasons.

As for this..

So what's going to happen next? Well, I'm pulling the plug completely. I'm cleaning up this website, removing the downloads, documentation, FAQs, etc.

Talk about immature. He could leave it there until a new maintainer stepped forward but he'd rather have a dummy spit and stamp his feet.

So what can you do about it? Not much, unless the kernel maintainers ease up a little, and stop being such fundamentalistic turds.

What a wanker.

Re:Sheesh...

[RustyTaco]

Unfortunately the kernel developers have this idea that somehow the kernel is exempt from the same rules that govern userspace: if you document and expose interfaces to external code, you keep the interfaces stable.

There's the part you're not understanding. Aside from the syscalls which havn't really changed in ages (You can boot the same userland on a 2.2, 2.4, or 2.6 kernel) Linux does not have any "Documented and exposed" interfaces. It's monolithic by design, so anything in kernel space is part of the kernel and uses volitile internal interfaces. It's not what they teach you in CS 101, but that's how it works.

- RustyTaco

Those fundamentalistic turds...

[Domini]

-grin-

Kernel maintainers see linux as a server platform... and that seems to be that... webcams don't really make headway in the Apache-server linux arena which is what Linux is really mainly being used for apart from embedded stuff.

Sure, perhaps they have a point? A kernel-hook here and a direct access there, and next thing you will have something like DirectX under linux! The Horror! A Security Nightmare!

But then there is also the practical approach... if they remove these things, then there *should* be alternatives!

Otherwise I will stop using Linux as my development platform as it's not consistent...

-sigh-

I've been using the pxc.o driver of Allesondro Rubini for some time now, and even that is a bit of a pain to install... One has to modify gub configs with kernel params etc...

This should really be done in userspace anyway

[Nagus]

The decompression part of this driver is in the kernel. This allows applications to get at the uncompressed (or "decoded") videostream through the v4l (video4linux) programming interface.

That's all fine and dandy, you may think. Not so. Nowadays applications shouldn't use these kernel interfaces at all. They should use media frameworks like GStreamer. If they did, the driver core could remain in the kernel, while the decompressor would be a special video-source plugin for GStreamer that talks to the kernel driver through some private interface.

The decompressor code could remain in userspace, where no one gives a flying fsck about its license. Applications would be more portable, and could use any video source instead of only v4l devices. Plus, it would be much easier to reverse engineer that damn decompressor, put it under the GPL, and be done with it.

Re:"Zealotry"

[squiggleslash]

Believe it or not I did RTFA, I just made the mistake of doing so at 7.30 in the morning and posting a kneejerk response to all the "They're all zealots" posts.

Still, I disagree anyone, except outanowhere and Nemosoft Unv, are being "zealots" in this case. There are perfectly good reasons for avoiding having proprietary, closed, code run at a kernel level with kernel privileges, and by Unv's own admission, there are other ways of achieving the same thing. He just doesn't want to do them:

I've considered the alternative, taking PWC/PWCX out of the kernel and supporting it solely as an add-on module, but rejected it. It would mean a demotion of PWC to a 2nd rank module, and probably quite a bit more work to maintain. Also, PWC would not work out-of-the-box anymore, while it does now. That would be acceptable if it's rarely used module, but that is not the case and it would probably confuse a lot of people.

This really is a matter of deciding whether he's maintaining proprietary code to operate a proprietary device, in which case, unfortunately, he's going to have to seperate his work from everyone else's, or whether he's not in which case he's going to have to press Philips harder to get out of the NDA. Ultimately, one way or another, he has many, many, options available to him that will ensure his camera will work under Linux. He's chosen to reject all routes except one that makes a lot of other people very uncomfortable. I'd say he's far more guilty of "zealotry" than the kernel maintainers he flames.

Taking my toys and going home

[Tom7]

So what's going to happen next? Well, I'm pulling the plug completely. I'm cleaning up this website, removing the downloads, documentation, FAQs, etc. I'm discontinuing the webcam@ mailbox, and I'm going to request (well, demand) that PWC will be removed from the kernel tree. I do not want a crippled driver in the kernel with my name attached to it. Last, I'm going to remove the entries in the bugtracker.

It's fine to lose interest due to political reasons and want to stop maintaining it. But this is pretty lame. Demanding that his code be removed from the kernel? (I expect the license will make it impossible to really "demand" that.) Getting rid of all the existing downloads, documentation and FAQs? It sounds more like a tantrum to me.

Alternatives?

[omega9]

After reading the rant^H^H^H^Hexplaination, it seems like the current two-part design is a product of Phillips still wanting to protect it's IP. There's enough open source code to get the cams working, but if you realy want all the wiz-bang you'll need their proprietary binary module.

If I were Phillips, I'd be pretty pissed. They have a product whos inner workings they, understandably, don't want to fully release just yet. There's enough code out there to drive the cams with pure open-source, but they've also been kind enough to provide a binary only interface to take advantage of more features.

It's kinda like:

Phillips: "We want to provide you with functionality, but we also have obligations to our internals and share holders, so we'll do what we can and meet you half way."

Kernel team: "Yeah, all that time we talk about wanting better hardware support? We were just fucking with you. Go home and die."

I understand the reason the hook was taken out of the kernel, and I can fully appreciate the intentions of doing so, but regardless of the technicalities, what kind of message does this send to Phillips, and, more importantly, other companies like it now and in the future?

Re:Alternatives?

[omega9]

How many other webcam companies let another guy write a prorietary driver under an NDA?

I can't think of any.

Realative to the situation, it is a big deal.

Tantrum

[hummassa]

It *is* a tantrum.

He can't demand back what he has already GPL-licensed. He can request it to be evicted of the kernel, and his request will probably be granted... Then someone else will take pwc and maintain it as a kernel patch. The interesting thing is that it seems not to exist any license information for pwcx.

Re:Tantrum

[hummassa]

I imagine that he can't demand that anyone who has exercised the rights granted under his license to retroactively remove his work from their own

Such rights were already excercised by a lot of Linux distributions, because his work was in the _pristine_, official Linus' kernel; besides, the copyright of his work is not only his: his code is a derivative work on lots of parts of the kernel, and, as such, the copyright holders of those parts are stake-holders in the copyrights of his work.

You used the expression "rescinded the license", but this is something he coud not do, event if he was the sole copyright owner: the GPL itself prevents it. When you license something under the GPL, you are granting a non-rescindable license (except in the case of section #4).

I have a bit of code I'm thinking of open-sourcing -- I've kept it closed simply because it's essentially a web-spider, and I incorporated pauses in it, to spare other people's servers, that I don't want selfish users to remove. I wish there were an established license that would allow me to open source it with conditions, like "don't remove the pauses". And I really wouldn't want anyone to, for instance, re-brand and sell my code -- as they can with the GPL, so long as they offer the source code

Please, please: read the DFSG AND the OSI Open Source Definition. What you want is _not_ open source, and _not_ Free software. You are better off, for now, not opening the code for your spider.

Re:Tantrum

[0x0d0a]

But if he decides not to license his work under the GPL anymore, what right do you or I have to use his code in a new project? We have no license from him, so we'd be violating his copyright.

It doesn't work like that. He can choose not to license his *future* work on the codebase under the GPL *if* he is the sole copyright holder (or all copyright holders agree), but even if you are the sole copyright holder, you can never "remove the rights you granted under the GPL to existing code". It might be that v2.3.1 or whatever is the final GPL version, but that version will stay GPL.

He can request that the code be removed from the mainline kernel -- a kernel guy doing so would do so as a courtesy to him, not because of any legal requirement.

Anyone could pick up the last GPLed version and start maintaining it.

The whole thing kind of sucks. The kernel people are understandably cranky because they're trying to work in a world where NDAs aren't that feasible, the GPL is important, and binary modules play hell with their ability to troubleshoot, platform compatibility and the like. The guy is understandably cranky because the kernel people are basically throwing out work that he went to the trouble of coding up for free under NDA (which seems to work pretty well). End users are understandably cranky because they paid $100 for their webcam that suddenly (at best) drops in resolution or stops working. Philips *could* become justifiably cranky because of the way they've given out some technical data and gotten kinda screwed, with Linux support for their products being dropped with no warning.

I have a bit of code I'm thinking of open-sourcing -- I've kept it closed simply because it's essentially a web-spider, and I incorporated pauses in it, to spare other people's servers, that I don't want selfish users to remove.

As a completely unrelated aside, I'm not sure that this is a good idea. Web servers can always limit rates to heavy users. However, a user can always get an "abusable" tool from somewhere. And honestly, wget in recursive mode doesn't cause problems (if wget allowed parallel operation, *then* there might be fireworks). I've never modified open-source software to remove delays, but I *have* binary-hacked a closed source piece of software to remove an imposed delay on web site downloading.

Reverse engineer it!

[spaceyhackerlady]

Since the Philips webcams work so well (I have half a dozen myself in various applications, most with the 9.0 beta 2 driver), I'm surprised nobody has ever attempted to reverse-engineer the USB traffic and create a completely open, non-tainted-by-NDA decompression module.

It wouldn't be the first time Linux developers had ignored an uncooperative device manufacturer.

...laura

Re:Problems with open source kernels

[Teogue]

Thank you all for the responses. Maybe we'll try again going through the whole community instead of one guy.