The LinuxTV project is an informal group of volunteers who develop software regarding digital television for the Linux kernel-based operating systems.
The community develops and maintains the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) driver subsystem which is part of the Linux kernel since version 2.6.x.
The Linux kernel and the LinuxTV CVS include a fair number of drivers for commonly available PCI cards and USB devices, but the DVB subsystem core is also targeted towards set-top boxes which run some (embedded) Linux.
The LinuxTV project was originally initiated by the Berlin, Germany based company Convergence Integrated Media GmbH with the goal to distribute free and open source software for the production, distribution and reception of digital television.
In 1998, the Convergence founders claimed that "Only the access to the source code of our future television sets will guarantee the independence of content and technology".