[linux-dvb] GPL violation (was: is twinhan dvbs-ci supported?)

[Marcus Metzler <mocm@metzlerbros.de>]

I just thought to point out the subject, so that the other bttv
authors may be aware of it.

Marcus 

Ralph Metzler writes:
 > Holger Waechtler writes:
 >  > Ralph Metzler wrote:
 >  > > Am Dienstag, 21. Januar 2003 11:13 schrieb Ralph Metzler:
 >  > > 
 >  > >>a.schinkel@vosschemie.de writes:
 >  > >> > hi ppl!
 >  > >> > 
 >  > >> > does one know if this one is supported? i donīt know which chipset is on it.
 >  > >> > 
 >  > >> > http://www1.alternate.de/html/nodes_info/jk-w01.html
 >  > >>
 >  > >>
 >  > >>No, the twinhan card is not supported.
 >  > > 
 >  > > 
 >  > > 
 >  > > OK, at least the Linux drivers written by Twinhan seem to be 
 >  > > publically available now at http://www.usa-x.org/down/index.php
 >  > > 
 >  > > But they are using their own API and are not open sourced (only some
 >  > > applications which come with it).
 >  > > Furthermore, a short disassembly and comparison of strings reveals
 >  > > that at least some parts of the driver contain code from BTTV, the
 >  > > Bt8x8 Linux driver.
 >  > 
 >  > have you tried estimate how many work would be required to modifiy our 
 >  > driver for bt878-based cards to get the Twinhans working?
 >  >
 >  > Peter Hettkamp wrote this driver initialy for Pinnacle's PCTV cards a 
 >  > while ago and Florian Schirmer ported it to the 2.5 tree last weeks. He 
 >  > also added support for bt878 based Nebula DVB-T cards.
 > 
 > 
 > I don't know how long it would take. I haven't looked at that new bt878
 > driver yet.
 > 
 > Twinhan use a microcontroller on their card which controls the whole
 > frontend. A few months ago I was in contact with Twinhan (initiated by 
 > somebody who wanted to pay us for writing a driver at that time).
 > They declined to give out any information on the proprietary protocol 
 > they use to talk to the microcontroller.
 > Now that their Linux driver seems to be available publically I decided to take
 > a closer look and found the GPL violations I reported above.
 > 
 > So, while they have a problem with giving out some information 
 > on some bytes protocol they use to talk to the MC, they have no
 > problem to take code from GPLed projects and put it in their
 > binary drivers.
 > The protocol is not hard to reverse engineer. I also had a look 
 > at that part of the binary. But I am not really inclined to support
 > a driver for their card anymore.
 > There are other cheap budget cards. The upcoming Flyvideo DVB card
 > e.g. is easy to support. Maybe there also is some really good
 > competition for the big TT cards very soon ...
 > 
 > 
 > Ralph
 > 
 > 
 > -- 
 > Info:
 > To unsubscribe send a mail to listar@linuxtv.org with "unsubscribe linux-dvb" as subject.
 > 


--
Info:
To unsubscribe send a mail to listar@linuxtv.org with "unsubscribe linux-dvb" as subject.