On Sat, Jun 30, 2007 at 08:29:19PM +0200, Clemens Kirchgatterer wrote: > Georg Acher <acher@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > 1) Don't use a HDMI transmitter and ignore the market demand. > > the market never "demanded" an encrypted data stream on the HDMI cable, >From a technical view this is right, but with just a component output you can't sell a HDTV decoder card nowadays. And HDMI is not only about encryption but also contains audio encapsulation. And that is an argument for HDMI vs. DVI... HDCP on a open Linux system is useless anyway. > and it is clearly the only reason they are picky about their secrets > within that driver. THEY want their chips be supported in linux The driver contains not much more than you would get with I2C-snooping. But if you want to buy the chip, you need to sign the NDA first... > because that means they get an stable and well performing OS at zero > cost for their embedded designes what makes these chips sell better. So what? Wasn't it idea of free Software to get it without paying for it? Or is there a newly inserted paragraph about hardware vendors to pay something if they use free SW? > hardware venders should start to obey to the rules of the game, when > they want our money. Overall, all this (IMO useless) discussion is only about the HDMI driver part which is currently (accidently) implemented in the kernel. I can't see that it's getting any "better" from an OSS standpoint when it's a closed-source user space program. Get real... The usual practical "anti-binary" arguments for a PC platform (new mainboard requires new kernel) don't count here, it's an embedded system. You can't simply switch the kernel anyway, as it has many additions for the V4L-stuff. > > 2) Use a HDMI transmitter, care about the NDA and deliver binary > > modules for controlling it. > > why not use [Free|Net|Open]BSD on the card? that whould not mean the > consumer has any advantage but at least no license violation happens. Well, you don't have to buy the card if you would wake up in cold sweat every once in a while because of the small binary-only part in the kernel. But IMO you can wait until the end of time for a full open source HDTV card with HDMI output. If you have the time... ;-) -- Georg Acher, acher@xxxxxxxxx http://www.lrr.in.tum.de/~acher "Oh no, not again !" The bowl of petunias _______________________________________________ vdr mailing list vdr@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vdr