[FFmpeg-devel] Patch for new input/output hardware devices with free but not open source library acceptable?

[Thijs Marinussen]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 12:12 AM, Kieran Kunhya <kierank at ob-encoder.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 11:03 PM, Thijs Marinussen
> <t.marinussen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The linux driversare open source.
>> The windows drivers are proprietary.
>> The API (which is required to use the cards) is freely re-distributable
>> but not open source.
>
> Why can't you just talk to the card using the drivers instead of a
> binary blob? You can do this with other cards, notably DVEO/Linsys
> cards
> so why not with Dektec? I don't see for simple ASI/SDI processing, what magic
There are multiple reasons not to do it that way:

1) For linux this might be possible, for windows the driver interface
is proprietary.
Also the API is the same for windows/linux so this simplifies porting between
those two platforms.
2) Simplicity in coding (this for me is reason enough to do it via the
blog instead
of talking directly to the driver).
3) Very easy to integrate RF playout later (same interface, just
setting some extra
parameters). RF support via just the driver is not possible since the
library does
part of the modulation in software.

Regards,
Thijs Marinussen