[mythtv-users] Current wisdom on PVR-150/250/350/500

[Brian Wood]

On Apr 16, 2006, at 9:50 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:

> On 04/16/2006 11:43 PM, Jeff Simpson wrote:
>> I don't see Hauppauge jumping up to release ANY drivers for their
>> hardware. They are all about saying "Works in Linux / MythTV", but
>> they won't even release register maps for their hardware to
>> developers, we've had to reverse engineer. The ivtv driver was  
>> written
>> by somebody from what I assume was reverse engineering the windows
>> driver and reading the specs for the various chips on the card.
>>
>
> In truth, Hauppauge isn't quite as bad as this makes them sound.
> They've been /very/ forthcoming with information /they own/ about  
> their
> cards.  Unfortunately, they build their cards from components made by
> other manufacturers whose NDA's prevent Hauppauge from releasing
> information about those components and their internal workings.


I agree, Hauppauge has been as forthcoming as they can be and should  
be commended.

What I don't understand is why nVidia behaves the way they do. They  
certainly *do* own the information about how their devices work, and  
I really don't see how releasing the information could hurt them, and  
although increased sales to the oopen software community might be  
minor, any sale is a good sale.

In order for any normal user to make any use of the information they  
have to have purchased their hardware. Are they worried about the  
competition (ATI?) learning something that might give them a  
competitive edge? I frankly doubt that would happen.

This is nothing new with graphics cards, I recall having to purchase  
an X server from X-Inside or Metro-X in order to get full support for  
a Mach-64 card under Linux, under slakware with a 1.2 kernel IIRC.  
(BTW, Happy Birthday Patrick Volkerding recently).

Is there a logical reason for all this secrecy, or is it just the  
same thing that drives the military to classify the recipe for  
creamed-chipped-beef?