The Linux kernel's IEEE 1394 subsystem provides access to the raw 1394 bus through the raw1394 module. This includes the standard 1394 transactions (read, write, lock) on the active side, isochronous stream receiving and sending and dumps of data written to the FCP_COMMAND and FCP_RESPONSE registers. raw1394 uses a character device to communicate to user programs using a special protocol.
libraw1394 was created with the intent to hide that protocol from applications so that
the protocol has to be implemented correctly only once.
all work can be done using easy to understand functions instead of handling a complicated command structure.
only libraw1394 has to be changed when raw1394's interface changes.
To fully achieve the goals (especially 3) libraw1394 is distributed under the LGPL (Lesser General Public License - see file COPYING.LIB for more information.) to allow linking with any program, be it open source or binary only. The requirements are that the libraw1394 part can be replaced (relinked) with another version of the library and that changes to libraw1394 itself fall under LGPL again. Refer to the LGPL text for details.