* * * * *

                                   Camquest

After lunch and killing some time at Walmart, Mark [1] and I headed to Office
Depot [2] to check to see if they had any webcams.

Obligatory Sidebar Links

QuickCam Third-Party Drivers [3]
Michael Holve - Linux QuickCam Page [4]
mini-HOWTO Connectix QuickCam color and Linux [5]


After the experiments I did with my digital camera and using it as a webcam,
[6] Mark got the itch to do something similar. Like me, he is Microsoft free.

And that's the main problem. Most new webcams are now USB based, and the USB
support for Linux is spotty at best, and with that, only with the latest
development kernels. Mark and I are still running Linux 2.0 kernels (why fix
it when it isn't broken?).

And the one webcam that isn't USB based, the Logitech Quickcam VC, doesn't
have Linux drivers—nor is Logitech being generous with programming
informtation; they're downright hostile and no information is available. The
older Connectix ones (Logitech bought Connectix) are supported under Linux.

There doesn't seem to be any reason why Logitech should keep this information
under wraps, unless:

 1. Logitech doesn't want others to know just how lousy the hardware is.
 2. Logitech is getting presure from some company on high not to release
    information that would allow other competing operating systems to use
    the hardware (no names, but its initials are <cough>Microsoft<cough>—
    seriously, many companies are afraid of doing anything which might anger
    the Redmond giant and giving any OS competitors any slight edge might
    anger them).
 3. Logitech management (or rather, the lawyers) are relunctant to release
    anything which might be considered Intellectual Property.

I suspect the truth is “all of the above” to some degree.

[1] http://www.conman.org/people/myg/
[2] http://www.officedepot.com/
[3] http://www.crynwr.com/qcpc/
[4] http://eunuchs.org/quickcam/
[5] http://www.dkfz-heidelberg.de/Macromol/wedemann/mini-HOWTO-cqcam.html
[6] http://www.conman.org/people/spc/about/

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