No subject

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 at in.tum.de         
         http://www.lrr.in.tum.de/~acher
         "Oh no, not again !" The bowl of petunias