Re: video(4) landed. "No webcam driver" is dead.

David,

The userland path was not removed , multimedia/webcamd  still works if you want the isolation tradeoff. 
video(4) isnt a replacement for that option, its a shared framework for the kernel drivers.

uvideo itself isn't new code we're taking a fresh risk on, it's OpenBSD driver port, in-kernel there since 2008 and ported by bapt. 

video(4) is that same logic factored out so uvideo, fwcam, and future capture drivers stop reimplementing their own buffer/mmap handling. Any crash bug in the core is a bug OpenBSD has been carrying for 15+ years, not one this change introduces and the review found several (UAF, lock ordering) that are now fixed upstream of both.

With more non tech people moving from windows or macos to freebsd, having a "Plug'N'Play" experience is what we should aim for.

You did not skip a design review here, cuz it happened 15 years ago on another BSD.

Abdel



On Tue, 11 Aug 2026, at 10:13, David Chisnall wrote:
> On 10 Aug 2026, at 20:42, Abdelkader Boudih <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> > Webcam. YES. You don't need userland daemon now. 
> 
> So, we’re moving a load of fault-isolated code that can run with reduced privileges and be restarted with no system-wide damage into the kernel where a single bug can crash the entire system?
> 
> That doesn’t sound like an improvement.  I probably missed the design review, why are we moving code that has been demonstrated to have performance requirements that can be satisfied in userspace into the kernel?
> 
> David
> 
>