[mythtv] Off-topic ranting (was: mythtv presentation at the CeBIT)

[Axel Thimm]

On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 08:49:58PM +0100, Marcus Metzler wrote:
> >>>>> "Axel" == Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net> writes:
> So, that is just the effort of one employee. They don't even seem to
> want to be associated with the driver.

You are implying things you really know nothing about.

>     Axel> SuSE. The release of this code out of Conexant's NDA
> 
> So, Gerd has been working on v4l drivers long before he was with
> Suse and did not get much information from Hauppauge then either.

Again, you know nothing about the relationship of Hauppauge to SuSE
...

>     Axel> involved all layers of Hauppauge from engineering to the
>     Axel> CEO.
> 
> That's very sad, just to get the specs for one chip which in case of
> Philips can be downloaded from their website.

Which would be no good, since the tuner comes from Thomson, and the
chip from Conexant. Or was this surreptitious advertising?

> By the way, does Hauppauge give out specs to their USB devices,
> their Nova-Ci or the elderly IBM chips in the mvp?

Are you asking for such, or is this rhetorical/academic? AFAIK most
about the MVP is already published, since it was GPL to begin
with. The IBM kernel modules are not, and getting IBM to release them
is quite difficult. It's easy to blame that on Hauppauge, too, I guess
...

> Just to make something clear, even if Hauppauge is starting to get
> more involved with Linux, they have been lacking for a long time and
> should not expect too much gratitude. Nobody expects them to write
> drivers. For the budget DVB cards it takes one, at most two man
> weeks, to write a driver when you have the specs.

And five times the time in management capacity to get the specs
released. You are oversimplyfing and you did your time at convergence
to know that the world is not as simple as you present it.

> That's because most of the structure that is needed is already
> there. They could have given specs for their cards when we asked
> them and had the drivers for free, but they did not want to, so we
> reverse engineered them, which takes a little longer.
> 
> 
> Supporting something when it is getting popular is much easier than
> supporting it when it is not.

Just to place things right, Hauppauge's support for Linux is its
support to the end consumer, and today that's 70% Windows, 20% Linux
and 10% the rest. It is neither an OS-philosopy/religion, nor a
personal favourisation/distaste. If in 5 years all and their cats will
only use Mac OS BEOS 2010 Edition, and you'll be the last Linux user,
chances are that Hauppauge's support focus will be different.

> So, Hauppauge should be commended for their new attitude but their
> old one should not be forgotten.

Be a Christian and "forgive them, for they did not know what they
did".

> But enough with the off topic, I just wanted to point out that VIA
> is no worse than Hauppauge or many others.

No, you just wanted to rant against Hauppauge.
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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