Re: kernel 2.6.8 pwc patches and counterpatches
From: Kenneth Lavrsen
Date: Fri Aug 27 2004 - 11:31:24 EST
>
> Indeed, it's a real shame.
> Everybody should never forget, as history tells, that extremist positions
> quickly lead to destruction.
> I hope that open source movement will never become fundamentalism.
>
My name is Kenneth Lavrsen. I maintain the open source project Motion.
Probably half of the users of Motion - and there are 1000s of them will
soon realise that next time they download a Kernel their camera will no
longer work.
I wonder if the people that decided to take out the pwc driver from the
Kernel considered anyone else than themselves?
When Greg decided to remove the hook that enabled the use of pwcx HE
decided to remove the driver. In practical the pwc driver is worthless
without pwc. Completely worthless. The tiny picture size supported without
pwcx is not worth anything. pwc goes hand in hand with pwcx. This is a
fact. When you decide to remove the possibility to use pwcx you cripple pwc
so that it is useless.
Greg decided that for fanatic and extremist reasons the 10000s - maybe
100000s - of people that have invested in a Webcamera like a Logitech or
Philips can throw away their camera if they want to keep their Linux
systems up to date in future.
I personally have 8 such cameras worth a fortune in working action and as a
Linux user I am so disappointed and angry with the way that the maintainers
(or is it in reality a single individual with too much power?) are
threating me and the many other Linux users.
And what about Nemosoft. Ideally it is pretty wrong of him to pull off the
driver from his site. That makes things even worse.
And his threads and ultimatum was not very nice either.But when you go back
and search for the mailing that has taken place between a few kernel
maintainers (lately Greg) it is easy to understand why Nemosoft is angry
and feel hurt and badly treated.
It is easy to see that the whole thing turned into a personal conflict
between Nemosoft and Greg.
And the way I read it - Nemosoft has been treated in an unfair and arrogant
way. Nemosoft is not a machine. He is a human and react as a human after
having been stepped on for a long time. It seems that a few fundamentalists
have picked on Nemosoft in their private war against anything closed
sourced. For a single individual working on a driver for no personal gain -
for no pay - - this is more than you can expect anyone to accept.
There has been problems with the driver in connection with kernel 2.6. Some
were real problems where a proper member of an open source community should
help and assist in finding the solution instead of just arrogantly marking
code bad.
And now the latest step of modifying the code so that it is useless like
removing the hook for pwcx. I have been using pwc/pwcx for years now and
the driver has been working well. Better than so many other USB based
devices I have tried and rejected.
The binary pwcx module has been accepted for years. And now fanatism has
taken over and suddenly the pwcx module is no longer pure. And it does not
seem like Greg spent even one second thinking about the 10000s of people
that have invested in the quite expensive (but much better than anything
else) Logitech and Philips cameras - knowing that it was supported by
Linux. He just destroyed the driver without a wink.
Did he think: "To hell with all the Linux users with a USB camera - I don't
care about other people - I care only about my own principles"?
Kernel developers sits with the power to reject incoming patches. Such
priviledge should be handled with respect. Not only to the individual
contributors - but also to the millions of Linux users that depends on
their behavour. What I have seen is in my eyes abuse of this power.
I would never remove a feature from Motion without a proper debate with my
users. Being a maintainer of an OSS project is a priviledge - not a right.
I sincerely hope that Nemosoft will return and that he will be better
received when he does.
And to all those kernel developers on this list. Remember that there are
millions of Linux users now. And if you start removing support of people
already purchased hardware for whatever religious reason - you will
eventually kill Linux - because then you force people back to Windows.
Right now I have a hard time finding the motivation to continue spending
10-20 hours per week maintaining the Motion project because of this. I am
really angry and disappointed. This is not what I had expected from a
community that that has been so great.
Kenneth
--
Kenneth Lavrsen,
Glostrup, Denmark
kenneth@xxxxxxxxxx
Home Page - http://www.lavrsen.dk
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