gspca

gspca is a kernel driver module intended as a major effort to support many different bridge interface chipsets used in pre UVC webcams, which, taken collectively, are known as gspca devices.

It is more accurate to describe gspca as a driver framework which consists of a core driver module (gspca_main) and several sub-drivers, which extend support to a large range of different webcams: gspca_conex, gspca_etoms, gspca_finepix, gspca_m5602, gspca_mars, gspca_mr97310a, gspca_ov519, gspca_ov534, gspca_pac207, gspca_pac7311, gspca_sn9c20x, gspca_sonixb, gspca_sonixj, gspca_spca500, gspca_spca501, gspca_spca505, gspca_spca506, gspca_spca508, gspca_spca561, gspca_stk014, gspca_stv06xx, gspca_sunplus, gspca_t613, gspca_tv8532, gspca_vc032x, gspca_zc3xx.

Development History

gspca has an interesting development history, having evolved quite a bit along its way. It originally began as adriver project to support webcams based upon the Sunplus spca50x chipset. After about its v0.3 release, the project became the spca5xx driver, which was essentially an expansion of reverse engineering efforts to include support for an even larger range of webcam bridge chipsets (such as from Sonix, Transvision, Z-star/Vimicro, Conexant, Etoms), and, hence, webcam devices. In mid-2006, the driver name was rebranded and now set as "gspca"; which, while in reflecting its Sunplus heritage, was now meant to stand for "Generic Software Package for Camera Adapters".

This original driver used the old V4L 1 API spec.  

rebranded as gspca version 1 in mid 2006. [1]. The gspca framework was later reworked to support the V4L2 API, and the resultant version 2 of the driver became integrated into the 2.6.27 kernel. It remains actively developed [2].