[LinuxBender]

proprietary API isn't that bad

My opinion differs a little bit. If I buy a PTZ I know some here think those are a waste I expect to be able to control it from an open source application. If I can control all aspects of PTZ audio and video then that is good enough for me, but may not be good enough for others.

[scottlamb]

I don't think proprietary APIs are mutually exclusive with open source clients. These APIs tend to be a lot simpler than ONVIF (SOAP is a mess) so they're easy to implement and even reverse-engineer (though there's often some documentation on the web). It's just a bit of work for each manufacturer.