On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 22:20 +0200, Carsten Agger wrote: > On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 15:12 +0200, Sam Geeraerts wrote: > > Peter and Jesse wrote: > > > Almost every file in the directory ubuntu/media/gspcav1/ is full of hex > > > tables. Many of them have names like static __u16 > > > [driver_name]_start_data[][3]. > > > > > > Also, several of these files (in different directories) are identified > > > as needing binary firmware on http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/firmware. > > > Peter > > > > > > > I've looked at a few of those files and it looks like most (all?) of > > them are copyrighted by private individuals rather than companies. Some > > of the comments say that the data has been reverse engineered by way of > > USB snooping. I believe most webcams are similar to Winmodems: almost > > all of the action happens in software. I can imagine that such software > > would include some magic initialization data. > > > > I think the authors did enough snooping to get the devices to work, but > > didn't bother to dig into it deeper to find out what all command codes > > and data actually meant. Comments on some lines indicate that they did > > find out for some parts of it. > > > > Despite the large amount of hex values and the code being rather terse > > and vague, I don't think the code has been deliberately obfuscated. So I > > think these files can be marked as free. I also don't immediately see > > any evidence of a requirement for proprietary firmware apart from the > > files that are included. > > > > This is just my subjective opinion. I don't know how these drivers are > > usually developed. As long as someone more knowledgeable in this field > > or one or more of the authors haven't confirmed this, it's probably > > safer to mark them as non-free. > > Maybe it would be a good idea to contact some of the individuals > credited with the code or perhaps somebody knowledgeable in this kind of > development to clear this up - possibly somebody in kernel development > or similarly? Who would that be? >
I have contacted the copyright holders for ubuntu/media/gspcav1/Vimicro/cs2102.h. I have received the following: "These values are reverse engineered the usb protocole between the webcam and a windoze box." I don't think it make sense to try to contact the authors of every file. cs2102.h seems to be one of the most hex-intensive files, so if it is reverse-engineered, I think that similar files probably are as well. I am inclined to mark these as free. Comments? Peter Stevenson _______________________________________________ gNewSense-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users
