Mailing List Archive

Ceton drivers for kernel?
Hello,
I miss the 4 cablecard tuners available from my Ceton Infinitv 4 PCI-E
card. The manufacturer insisted over the years they were still in business,
but it's pretty clear they have crashed and burned.

I've tried the github drivers, but they haven't kept pace with the latest
5.x kernels. What is stopping "the kernel" from supporting the tuners. I
realized I'm probably drastically oversimplifying both technical and legal
challenges. Can someone enlighten me?

Thanks in advance,
Steve

Steve Greene
(301) 842-8923
historicity.co
An independent archival professional specializing in still photography,
moving images and recorded sound.
Re: Ceton drivers for kernel? [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 10:42 PM Steve Greene <sgreene820@gmail.com> wrote:

> I miss the 4 cablecard tuners available from my Ceton Infinitv 4 PCI-E card. The manufacturer insisted over the years they were still in business, but it's pretty clear they have crashed and burned.

Ceton made a pivot that bankrupted themselves. I believe
the company still exists in legal limbo for certain parties to
continue to try to pick at whatever assets remain on the
carcass.

> I've tried the github drivers, but they haven't kept pace
> with the latest 5.x kernels. What is stopping "the kernel"
> from supporting the tuners. I realized I'm probably
> drastically oversimplifying both technical and legal
> challenges. Can someone enlighten me?

Some Ceton staff themselves were Linux users (they
even initially thought the product might have a useful
niche in LInux), but the company mgmt realized that
that a protected content path requirement for the core
target audience basically made it a Windows (mostly)
product, and as such, never really formally supported
Linux, and never productized the driver.

To get something into the kernel, the developer(s) need
to write to the GPL license, agree to certain T&Cs,
and also to agree to long term support (since, as you
experience, the kernel itself changes, and the
maintainer is responsible for at least some of the
changes some of the time).

And, last I knew, ceton had not formally placed the
drivers under the GPL license (and the one line that
some companies use to bypass kernel checks for out of
tree drivers is not a full source license). As the company
is no more, trying to get signoff on any license change
might be complex to achieve (although a few of the
principals have moved on to better pastures, the
code itself is presumably still owned by the corporate
zombie).

Since the license status is unclear, if you are a
capable kernel developer, you probably would need
to write a completely new driver and get it upstreamed.

Note since the existing driver(s) license is unclear,
you may need to build a chinese wall between those
in your team performing the reverse engineering of
the hardware and your writing of a new driver. Those
that have looked at the existing driver may be
considered tainted depending on your jurisdiction's
legal frameworks.

Oh, and last I knew, the latest beta firmware that
dropped just before the implosion (the beta firmware
was required for certain MSOs due to an "interesting"
interpretation of a CableLabs reg) has a memory
leak under some conditions that may require a
tuner reboot from time to time otherwise the tuner
starts to randomly fail to operate. It would have
presumably been resolved before the final release
of the firmware, but it never got that far.
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Re: Ceton drivers for kernel? [ In reply to ]
Thanks for the insight, Gary. I recognize that cablecard is a rapidly
diminishing market. I'm curious how HDHomeRun (et al) structured their
product licensing to effectively sandbox the CCI/DRM portion of the tuner's
operations. I remember hearing they actually used a linux kernel for basic
os housekeeping within the device. Do developers every use legal
researchers to figure out potential end runs around these IP-cluster-fucks?

Thanks,
Steve

Steve Greene
(301) 842-8923
historicity.co
An independent archival professional specializing in still photography,
moving images and recorded sound.


On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 7:53 PM Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 22, 2021 at 10:42 PM Steve Greene <sgreene820@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I miss the 4 cablecard tuners available from my Ceton Infinitv 4 PCI-E
> card. The manufacturer insisted over the years they were still in business,
> but it's pretty clear they have crashed and burned.
>
> Ceton made a pivot that bankrupted themselves. I believe
> the company still exists in legal limbo for certain parties to
> continue to try to pick at whatever assets remain on the
> carcass.
>
> > I've tried the github drivers, but they haven't kept pace
> > with the latest 5.x kernels. What is stopping "the kernel"
> > from supporting the tuners. I realized I'm probably
> > drastically oversimplifying both technical and legal
> > challenges. Can someone enlighten me?
>
> Some Ceton staff themselves were Linux users (they
> even initially thought the product might have a useful
> niche in LInux), but the company mgmt realized that
> that a protected content path requirement for the core
> target audience basically made it a Windows (mostly)
> product, and as such, never really formally supported
> Linux, and never productized the driver.
>
> To get something into the kernel, the developer(s) need
> to write to the GPL license, agree to certain T&Cs,
> and also to agree to long term support (since, as you
> experience, the kernel itself changes, and the
> maintainer is responsible for at least some of the
> changes some of the time).
>
> And, last I knew, ceton had not formally placed the
> drivers under the GPL license (and the one line that
> some companies use to bypass kernel checks for out of
> tree drivers is not a full source license). As the company
> is no more, trying to get signoff on any license change
> might be complex to achieve (although a few of the
> principals have moved on to better pastures, the
> code itself is presumably still owned by the corporate
> zombie).
>
> Since the license status is unclear, if you are a
> capable kernel developer, you probably would need
> to write a completely new driver and get it upstreamed.
>
> Note since the existing driver(s) license is unclear,
> you may need to build a chinese wall between those
> in your team performing the reverse engineering of
> the hardware and your writing of a new driver. Those
> that have looked at the existing driver may be
> considered tainted depending on your jurisdiction's
> legal frameworks.
>
> Oh, and last I knew, the latest beta firmware that
> dropped just before the implosion (the beta firmware
> was required for certain MSOs due to an "interesting"
> interpretation of a CableLabs reg) has a memory
> leak under some conditions that may require a
> tuner reboot from time to time otherwise the tuner
> starts to randomly fail to operate. It would have
> presumably been resolved before the final release
> of the firmware, but it never got that far.
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org
>
Re: Ceton drivers for kernel? [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 12:13 AM Steve Greene <sgreene820@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the insight, Gary. I recognize that cablecard is a rapidly diminishing market.

For most MSOs, CableCARDs are a dead end.
We are only trying to guess the date (for some
MSO the date(s) are clearly earlier than others).

> I'm curious how HDHomeRun (et al) structured their product licensing to effectively sandbox the CCI/DRM portion of the tuner's operations.

Both Ceton and SiliconDust use CableLabs approved
technology for the protected path required content
(CCI = copy_one or copy_never). For content without
that requirement (CCI = copy_freely), they both have
chosen alternative paths (SiliconDust just use a
UDP transport stream, or an HTTP encapsulated
transport stream; Ceton uses RTSP).

> I remember hearing they actually used a linux kernel for basic os housekeeping within the device.

Ceton uses a linux kernel in their device, but,
just like the TiVo (which also uses linux), take
advantage of secure processes internally to
ensure that in their device the content is
protected. As I recall, SiliconDust, with the
HDHR3-CC product, reportedly used a different
RTOS they licensed (maybe VxWorks?)

> Do developers every use legal researchers
> to figure out potential end runs around these
> IP-cluster-fucks?

As any active attempts to bypass IP requirements
is a CEE (Corporate Ending Event (minimal
costs are in the many millions, perhaps billions))
no real company would even consider thinking
along those lines as one of the early impacts
means having their entire CableCARD certificate
revoked, effectively bricking their devices, and
any device they have ever sold. So such
companies would get it from both sides (their
customers, and the content owners).
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Re: Ceton drivers for kernel? [ In reply to ]
On 23/07/2021 05:17, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> protected. As I recall, SiliconDust, with the
> HDHR3-CC product, reportedly used a different
> RTOS they licensed (maybe VxWorks?)

nmap thinks that my hdhr runs Linux (some version between 3.2 and 4.9).
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Re: Ceton drivers for kernel? [ In reply to ]
On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 10:12 AM Jan Ceuleers <jan.ceuleers@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 23/07/2021 05:17, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> > protected. As I recall, SiliconDust, with the
> > HDHR3-CC product, reportedly used a different
> > RTOS they licensed (maybe VxWorks?)
>
> nmap thinks that my hdhr runs Linux (some version between 3.2 and 4.9).

Is that a HDHR3-CC? Reportedly they used
different OS's in different variants of the product
(just like they used different SoCs in different
variants of the product).
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