Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Webcam Driver Writers for Linux

I came across this blog post about Michel Xhaard, A Lone Hobbyist, who wrote drivers for 235 low-cost webcams and contributed to Linux community. He did not ask anyone for money for his excellent job ( at least not from normal users -- not sure about corporates). Hats off to people like him.

On the Other hand we have Luca, who believes in writing drivers, but offers them as A trial (time-limited) version.



As printed on his website ::
Q: Will you release the source code one day?
A: It's likely I will never release the source code, unless I have financial proposals. The best candidate is the manufacturer of these controllers. If you would like to see this driver released under the GPL to everyone, please send them a personal request. The more requests they will see, the more they will consider this driver.

Another way is to collect the money once from all the potential users, according to the principles of the ransom model:
"A publishing model where copyrighted works (such as books, software, or music) remain proprietary until a total amount of money is collected or a certain date arrives, at which point the work is automatically freed to the public." The terms of this approach will require a preliminary discussion between me and a group of interested users. Contact me in this case.

Well, though I do not support charging money for Linux driver, but its his wish -- he wrote them.
At the same time it he who has made those drivers available to Linux world, we must give him credit for this.




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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

if you are looking to reverse engineer webcam drivers for linux, look here

https://groups.google.com/group/microdia

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