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Re: quickcam: "Free VIDEC access campaign", Step 1

> > Check the wording carefully on whatever NDA they want you/us to sign.  
> > Someday I may want to write my own graphics and/or compression 
> > algorithms; I don't want to sign away my rights to -that-.

>   This is not NDA, it's non-competition agreement that emplayees sign (and
> which is invalid and illegal in most of cases).

Right. If you sign an NDA about VIDEC, you can still develop your own
compression algorithm. However you'd be in trouble if your "new" algorithm
is based by 99% on VIDEC...

> > If we scratch this part of the proposed contract, we can do something 
> > like what Bart suggested: write a shared library (ported to each 
> > platform) and "hook" into it from the cqcam/qcam/qcread/etc...  Problem 
> > there is, that library could easily be used for file (i.e., non-camera) 
> > sources.

That's exactly what I proposed in the last part of my message, too.

> > I think Connectix would be far more concerned about people freely 
> > distributing a compressor CODEC.


I doubt that VIDEC is complicated enough so that one cannot find out how to
compress by reading the source code for decompression. So I cannot imagine that
they want the decompression SOURCE code available. They freely distribute
binaries for decompression, fine, but not source code.


THE IDEA BEHIND THE "A QUICKCAM MUST BE CONNECTED TO THE DEVICE" TERM IS that
even if you are a registered developer, you may not build your OWN new camera
and implement VIDEC with it unless you PAY a license. If you use your soft- /
hardware with a genuine quickcam however, using VIDEC is free. This is a way of
protecting Connectix against other manufacturers of digital cameras.


It's not that we, the developer, have to write the program / library in a way
to stop other (non-registered) developers to use it on files. We just have to
promise not use it that way and add a license note to our library that others
may not use it that way, either. If Connectix - some day - finds someone using
VIDEC with something else than a quickcam, they can charge him for that.

Think of it as a "shareware" style license. You may do certain things with
VIDEC, but everything else is ILLEGAL, though possible. If you do the forbidden
part and Connectix finds out - you'll meet them in court. Again, this is meant
to protect them against other manufacturers of digital cameras.


> > > - registered developers will have access to the COMPLETE source code of
the
> > > quickcam drivers for windows and macintosh computers.

> > Dream on.  :)  They have posted sample (probably not used in QuickPict) 
> > code for the protocol.  I have a feeling that we're better off asking 
> > just for similar sample code demonstrating the decompressor.  They won't 
> > give us the whole thing.
 
> > ... not that we need it, right?  I wrote cqcam before I realized they'd 
> > posted sample C code to do similar things.

But I insist on that term.

It's not for VIDEC, it's for the rest of the driver. They seem to do a lot of
timing tricks in their source code that they do not tell us about in the low
level protocol. And also, I finally want to have access to the macintosh serial
quickcam's driver implementation. As many people pointed out, the official
document of the serial low level protocol is of no help for a third party
developer, even for the experienced one.

If we ask for the source, Connectix does not have to rewrite its low level
protocol. Less work for them.




Greetings,


Hanno