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Ask Harald Welte, "VIA's open source representative"

Posted by Roblimo on from the meet-a-free-software-renaissance-man dept.

In this recent Slashdot post kernel hacker Harald Welte was characterized as "VIA's open source representative," but that is just one of many irons he has in the fire, as a glance at his Wikipedia bio will show. You can obviously ask Harald about many interesting things besides VIA's open source strategy — and before you ask about VIA, you ought to read the last few entries on his blog, at least one of which mentions VIA questions he can't answer. But VIA aside, there's plenty to ask Harald about. For example, he won an award from the FSF earlier this year for his work on gpl-violations.org. In any case, Harald is a powerful force for GNU/Linux and Free Software, and we appreciate him taking time out of his undoubtedly hectic schedule to answer your questions. (Usual Slashdot interview rules apply.)

3 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Old boards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The drivers don't provide video acceleration. That's a codec issue. Via has posted the via enhanced XINE project which incorporates the hardware acceleration routines into xine. http://sourceforge.net/projects/viaexp/

    I'd prefer an ffmpeg branch that would easily plug into xine, mplayer, or mythtv.

  2. Re:Old boards by dan+the+person · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you use the openchrome drivers instead of VIAs own drivers, then the MPEG2 acceleration, subject to hardware caveats[1] is supported by stock xine, mplayer, and myth. No need for special forked builds like viaexp.

    The MII board features a CLE266 chipset which is fully supported for MPEG2 hardware acceleartion

    [1]http://wiki.openchrome.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=HardwareCaveats

  3. Re:Have you ever accused an innocent? by novakyu · · Score: 2, Informative

    Have you ever accused anyone of violating the GPL and then found out that they didn't?

    I doubt this is likely to happen. As GPL enforcers' primary goal is compliance (not damage), when the violation is suspected, the copyright owner (or his agent) contacts the company first, asking them to comply with GPL.

    If they are, in fact, in compliance, then the company should tell you before any public accusation is made. Lawsuits (and public condemnations) start only when the companies ignore the initial communications (which, I think, is done in the form of C&D letter from lawyers these days, if only because that will get escalated to right levels more quickly than an informal letter from the developer.)