Counter hypothesis because I can’t be bothered to research it fully:

Pi: “Hello we wish to buy a $thing”

Vendor: “Certainly. We sell $thing for ten dollars per unit if it doesn’t have DRM, or five dollars per unit if it does.”

The camera PCB was made by rpi for specific use with the rpi. The DRM chip is not part of the camera vendor's assembly. It is a separate chip placed on the PCB, therefore placed there by the PCB designer, i.e., by rpi.

Ben Upton said:

> You can plug any CSI camera into the Raspberry Pi. There's even a kernel driver for the CSI receiver, which we paid for ((link: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9951525/) patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9951525/). What you can't do is clone the official v2 camera module and use the default ISP tuning, which we also paid for.

https://mobile.twitter.com/EbenUpton/status/1088440503622909...

Personally I have no problem at all with protecting the investments around add-ons like this module, if it means they continue to persue them.

I'd prefer if they gave us the full functionality of the device though - the imager is capable of global shutter but it is locked out.

That's a fair point. Perhaps when camera v3 is released they'll have the option of updating start.elf and removing the restrictions on using this hardware.

Isn't the use of the chip by the user entirely optional?

Well, it's optional in the sense that if you can find a way to use the camera with some board other than a Raspberry Pi then you don't have to use it. If you're doing the intended thing of connecting it to a Raspberry Pi, though? Not optional.

> Vendor: “Certainly. We sell $thing for ten dollars per unit if it doesn’t have DRM, or five dollars per unit if it does.”

Hah - sounds like the "boneless vs bone-in steak" sales model - take the bone out of the steak, and suddenly it costs more per pound than it does with the bone left in. Somehow, less costs more - and people sadly pay for it.

If they wanted to be open they'd probably transition to RISC_V.