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Lone Programmer Writes 352 Webcam Drivers For Linux
mrneutron2004 writes "A French physician and ardent Linux supporter is the one man you can all thank for adding support for 352 webcams in Linux. The Open Source OS world may still be a bit of a mess when competing with the ease of Windows, but efforts like this make you wonder. One man with drive, tenacity, and no funding does what no one else can do. And none of the major Linux distributions back this guy's efforts, even the big players dipping into the corporate world's coffers."
How about a link to his paypal account? Anyone?
I'd donate a few bucks.
(Shameless plug) I had this tablet I'd spent $500 on back when it first came out, and I was going to be damned if I didn't get support for it on my favorite OS. It took something like 3 years to get it into shape, but now I have this project with a life of its own. Most recently I was prompted to add support for TabletPC computers running Mac OS X unsupported. All along the way, I've had people interested in the results, who have helped me to add support for their tablets. The internet has made it possible to collaborate instantly with people you've only just connected with for the first time, and do in a matter of days what might have taken weeks.
So it doesn't surprise me that this guy's driver works for so many cameras. So many of these hardware devices with different brand names use the same off-the-shelf chip-sets. And serial devices are all very similar in their protocols, so new drivers are easier to make.
I don't think my driver for their old serial tablets has cost Wacom much in sales, and that was never the intent. Their new USB tablets are thinner and totally hassle-free, which makes them attractive for most people. There have been a few people who told me they had specifically held out on buying a new Wacom USB tablet, and who either had put the old one away or were using it with Mac OS 9. And there were a few people who had bought USB-Serial adapters only to find that no driver existed to make their tablets work. I sympathized with both situations somewhat, and this also spurred me on.
As an open source developer I have the advantage of total loyalty to my project, and not to any other parasitic motive. So when I get a feature working in my driver or control panel, it remains available. A company may remove features to encourage upgrades, and reducing functionality for non-technical reasons is evil.
I propose a new holiday: Driver Writers' Day. It could co-incide with the date of the first shipment of Mountain Dew.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Americans are very strange. They think they're not British, yet retain the traditional British antipathy toward the French. Of course, Britain and France have been rivals for centuries, but France and America have never been, so why do Americans spend so much time abusing the frogs? I suppose it's the same national schizophrenia that makes Americans identify with the Rebelk Alliance in Star Wars rather than the Empire, which depicts them far more accurately. Americans charaterise the frogs as militarily incompetent or cowardly, totally ignoring Napoleon's extraordinary military achievements. Weird.
I'm English, of course, so I can say with easy conviction that I love France and hate the French. Especially my ex-girlfriend.