Database Users

OpenSource drivers

I can't believe how much HTC is screwing us. Ok, I guess I totally get it. I wrote a post about this but I wanted to get everyone's opinion.
Does anyone else want HTC to opensource the drivers for the Hero? I think it would breath new life into the phone and send a sign that HTC supports their hardcore users.

giovannizero said:
I can't believe how much HTC is screwing us. Ok, I guess I totally get it. I wrote a post about this but I wanted to get everyone's opinion.
Does anyone else want HTC to opensource the drivers for the Hero? I think it would breath new life into the phone and send a sign that HTC supports their hardcore users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i completely agree. the hero has only been out 8 months and they just completely abandoned it. i vote... hell yes!!

cp0020 said:
the hero has only been out 8 months and they just completely abandoned it.
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Click to collapse
HTC only writes the software that Sprint pays it to write. All direction and control of development on single-carrier devices comes from that carrier. Its a business decision, basic cost/benefit analysis. There's not enough financial incentive for Sprint to pay for any more updates to the Hero. If people would stop shelling out cash for the latest and greatest (Evo 4G) each time it comes out and stop tolerating oppressive contracts with ETF fees, then devices wouldn't get abandoned so quickly.

cmccracken said:
HTC only writes the software that Sprint pays it to write. All direction and control of development on single-carrier devices comes from that carrier. Its a business decision, basic cost/benefit analysis. There's not enough financial incentive for Sprint to pay for any more updates to the Hero.
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Click to collapse
glad your on board.....

cp0020 said:
glad your on board.....
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Click to collapse
Its irrelevant if people think HTC should or should not "opensource the drivers". Since HTC uses a monolithic kernel in the Hero (except for the wifi), they are required to release the source code for all components of the shipping kernel (including all "drivers") under terms of the GPL. Even if they do so, it will be the code for the kernel used in the 2.1 Android release, not for the kernel in the 2.2 release. It may still be useful, but is not a guaranteed slam dunk.
They have repeatedly chosen to stall and delay the source code release process and violate the copyright policy on the software they are using for their devices. Until an actual author of Linux kernel code sues them for violating his/her intellectual property's copyright, they will likely continue to do this. If you have a problem with the way they do business, stop giving them money. They've been doing this since far before the Hero was released.
My original comment was in response to the "hero has only been out 8 months and they just completely abandoned it" comment. I'll add a quotation before it for context.

cmccracken said:
Its irrelevant if people think HTC should or should not "opensource the drivers". Since HTC uses a monolithic kernel in the Hero (except for the wifi), they are required to release the source code for all components of the shipping kernel (including all "drivers") under terms of the GPL. Even if they do so, it will be the code for the kernel used in the 2.1 Android release, not for the kernel in the 2.2 release. It may still be useful, but is not a guaranteed slam dunk.
They have repeatedly chosen to stall and delay the source code release process and violate the copyright policy on the software they are using for their devices. Until an actual author of Linux kernel code sues them for violating his/her intellectual property's copyright, they will likely continue to do this. If you have a problem with the way they do business, stop giving them money. They've been doing this since far before the Hero was released.
My original comment was in response to the "hero has only been out 8 months and they just completely abandoned it" comment. I'll add a quotation before it for context.
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Click to collapse
just letting you know i wasnt trying to be a smartass before. sorry if it came off like that. your probably right but we can still dream lol

cp0020 said:
just letting you know i wasnt trying to be a smartass before. sorry if it came off like that. your probably right but we can still dream lol
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Click to collapse
You were being a smart-ass, but I wasn't offended. I would have done the same.

cmccracken said:
You were being a smart-ass, but I wasn't offended. I would have done the same.
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Click to collapse
Lol now that were best friends again let me buy you a beer lolol
Sent from my HERO200 using XDA App

cmccracken said:
Its irrelevant if people think HTC should or should not "opensource the drivers". Since HTC uses a monolithic kernel in the Hero (except for the wifi), they are required to release the source code for all components of the shipping kernel (including all "drivers") under terms of the GPL. Even if they do so, it will be the code for the kernel used in the 2.1 Android release, not for the kernel in the 2.2 release. It may still be useful, but is not a guaranteed slam dunk.
They have repeatedly chosen to stall and delay the source code release process and violate the copyright policy on the software they are using for their devices. Until an actual author of Linux kernel code sues them for violating his/her intellectual property's copyright, they will likely continue to do this. If you have a problem with the way they do business, stop giving them money. They've been doing this since far before the Hero was released.
My original comment was in response to the "hero has only been out 8 months and they just completely abandoned it" comment. I'll add a quotation before it for context.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not true at all. Drivers do not have to be open source. Drivers do not have to be released under the GPL just because the kernel is released under the GPL, if they did, then why are so many linux drivers just binary blobs and not source?

liquidtenmillion said:
That's not true at all. Drivers do not have to be open source. Drivers do not have to be released under the GPL just because the kernel is released under the GPL, if they did, then why are so many linux drivers just binary blobs and not source?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're thinking of drivers that are distributed via loadable kernel modules. On the Hero, there is only one module (wlan.ko, for the wifi chipset). Everything else is built into the GPL'ed kernel. The entire kernel from GPL sources is the "binary blob" distributed by HTC.

liquidtenmillion said:
That's not true at all. Drivers do not have to be open source. Drivers do not have to be released under the GPL just because the kernel is released under the GPL, if they did, then why are so many linux drivers just binary blobs and not source?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The justification is that the HTC drivers are included in a monolithic compilation of the kernel and therefore fall under the GPL as a modification to the kernel. The binary blobs you are referring to are not distributing a modified kernel with the drivers such as HTC did, therefore do not fall under GPL. You do not have to distribute your code if you work alongside GPL software, only if you modify it.

I posted up your blog post on digg, link.
Also I tweeted a link to the article, link; please retweet.

gu1dry said:
I posted up your blog post on digg, link.
Also I tweeted a link to the article, link; please retweet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Retweet'd because I agree that they should be open, but I am not entirely inclined to believe they are required to open the drivers. Similar to their power control software, its their code - it just lives next door to the kernel.
I am however really ticked that they haven't released Kernel Code even though they have obviously used that...they where quick with Legend and Desire.
I know we already have "Kernel Code that works" from the eris - but it's still not OURS and toast had to do a hell of a lot of work to get that. Work that shouldn't have even needed to be done. Compiled Code ships...source should ship as well.

Retweet'd because I agree that they should be open, but I am not entirely inclined to believe they are required to open the drivers. Similar to their power control software, its their code - it just lives next door to the kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it would live "next door" to the kernel if they were .ko loadable kernel modules. HTC compiled it straight into the kernel. Thus, under GPL2, they *are* part of the kernel, and therefore must be released as open source as well.
.ko binary drivers were a practical real-world compromise to allow proprietary binaries to coexist without screwing up the efforts of others to independently build their own kernels that make use of them. That's the key contention here. A .ko module allows you to treat it as a black box with a well-defined interface, and rewrite everything else around it. A monolithic binary blob is the software equivalent of a circuit board with bare, carrier-free chips soldered directly to it, then sealed in a blob of epoxy like a big IC that can't be meaningfully modified without breaking the whole thing.

If Android is opensource, how can Google hold back Honeycomb Src?

I don't understand how if Android is Opensource and borrows code from Linux kernel and other OpenSource projects, how Google can legally hold back the honeycomb sourcecode?
I'm not really interested in Honeycomb source myself, nor the OS dev scene, but what I DO care about, is that some of my favorite apps are broken on my Tablet, and the developers all point the finger at Google, saying the flash API changed in Honeycomb, and they need the source to get it working.
The biggest broken apps for me are:
Opera Mobile 11
BBC iPlayer App
Opera even come out and tell us why Flash does not work on Opera Mobile 11 on Honeycomb:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.opera.browser&feature=search_result
(What's New Tab)
"Flash not supported on Android 3.x due to Google not releasing necessary platform code"

"Open source" doesn't mean what you think it means.
The Linux kernel source is available under the GPLv2, this mean that is you ship a product you must provide the source, hence its the device manufacturers responsibility to give us the kernel source because it's them we buy the product from.
The Android framework and the Dalvik virtual machine are all available under an Apache licence, this allows anyone to take the source code and make a closed proprietary product and/or addition (Like Blur/Sense/Touchwiz) without this Android would not have caught on anywhere near as fast, but it also means that there is no requirement for future derivative products to have source code released. Even if the person doing that is Google.
All the API's that people _should_ be using are documented, the problem is that the products you mention are trying to mimic the native browser and use internal only method calls, if you step out of the approved API box then you have problems like this.
Why BBC iPlayer needs flash I don't know, all 3.1 tablets can play the flashhigh and flashhd (h.264) iPlayer streams natively I use get-iplayer and transfer the files to my Transformer for viewing and it works beautifully. I guess the Android app team are just lazy (or iPhone developers who don't know Android very well)

SilentMobius said:
The Android framework and the Dalvik virtual machine are all available under an Apache licence, this allows anyone to take the source code and make a closed proprietary product and/or addition (Like Blur/Sense/Touchwiz) without this Android would not have caught on anywhere near as fast, but it also means that there is no requirement for future derivative products to have source code released. Even if the person doing that is Google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While this is true, it is not the real reason why Google can hold back the souce code. Google owns the copyright to DalVik and the Android platform. All contributions checked into the Android tree in the end have their copyright assigned to Google, regardless of who wrote them.
Because they own the copyright, they can do whatever the heck they want with the code, whenever they want. A copyright owner can not violate their own license, the license is only applicable for other people (who have no copyright to the code) to use it in their projects.
It's a subtle but very important distinction, because even if Android was all GPL they still would not have to be releasing any changes, because they own it.
The only part of the code Google is obligated to release, is their kernel changes (because it is Linux, which is GPL and they don't have the full copyright to) - and they do release these, always.

brunes said:
While this is true, it is not the real reason why Google can hold back the souce code. Google owns the copyright to DalVik and the Android platform. All contributions checked into the Android tree in the end have their copyright assigned to Google, regardless of who wrote them.
Because they own the copyright, they can do whatever the heck they want with the code, whenever they want. A copyright owner can not violate their own license, the license is only applicable for other people (who have no copyright to the code) to use it in their projects.
It's a subtle but very important distinction, because even if Android was all GPL they still would not have to be releasing any changes, because they own it.
The only part of the code Google is obligated to release, is their kernel changes (because it is Linux, which is GPL and they don't have the full copyright to) - and they do release these, always.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually no, just because they hold the rights doesn't mean they don't have to obey the license. It's just that Android is released under the Apache license which states that source must be released, but doesn't say WHEN the source has to be released, so they can hold it back as long as they deem fit.

seshmaru said:
Actually no, just because they hold the rights doesn't mean they don't have to obey the license. It's just that Android is released under the Apache license which states that source must be released, but doesn't say WHEN the source has to be released, so they can hold it back as long as they deem fit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, no!
The ASL is not a copy left licence, so if Google so wish they do not have to release the source code for Honeycomb ever. In much the same way, I can download Android code from AOSP, create my own unique version, and I don't have to contribute my code back to AOSP, nor do I need to supply it to anyone on demand (with the exception of GPL'd kernel code of course).
Regards,
Dave

foxmeister said:
Actually, no!
The ASL is not a copy left licence, so if Google so wish they do not have to release the source code for Honeycomb ever. In much the same way, I can download Android code from AOSP, create my own unique version, and I don't have to contribute my code back to AOSP, nor do I need to supply it to anyone on demand (with the exception of GPL'd kernel code of course).
Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's correct that it is not copyleft, and I was aware of this. All android releases however are released under the Apache license, which means the source for android itself has to be there, but any further modifications can use whatever they want. So yes google has to make Honeycomb open source eventually since it was released under the Apache license. Any derivatives of honeycomb wouldn't need to provide the source though.

seshmaru said:
So yes google has to make Honeycomb open source eventually since it was released under the Apache license. Any derivatives of honeycomb wouldn't need to provide the source though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No they don't! That is the *whole* point. Honeycomb, at this point in time, is *not* an open source project because no source has been released, and the license of its antecedents is not a copyleft licence.
Honeycomb is, broadly speaking, a derivative of an earlier Android build (Froyo/Gingerbread whatever), and in this respect it is no different to say HTC's Sense builds which are also not open source.
Regards,
Dave

Hey ice cream will be open sourced. I don't think they want honeycomb plopped onto phones so they won't push it to aosp. Ice Cream will be a hybrid.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

Have also wondered this myself.. but reading all of this has made me more confused than I was before.. who's right? :S

It's correct that Google hold the copyright for the bulk of the android framework, and as the copyright owners they are not subject to license terms, so they don't need to release anything but that only works for Google products. If the licence had been GPL then manufacturers would need to supply source with their products, not Google but ASUS/Samsung/HTC/etc/etc.
Short version: Google don't need to release anything, app developers shouldn't use internal APIs and rely on having platform source to make things work.
That said I want to change some of the browser behaviour and plumb back in handling for the .mkv file extension (because the container parsing is already in there) So I'd love to get my hands on the HC source, no matter how messy.

david279 said:
Hey ice cream will be open sourced. I don't think they want honeycomb plopped onto phones so they won't push it to aosp. Ice Cream will be a hybrid.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And yet, it didn't seem to worry them when the first flurry of tablets came out with a phone (Froyo/GB) OS. Sorry, but to me, that excuse doesn't fly.

Divine_Madcat said:
And yet, it didn't seem to worry them when the first flurry of tablets came out with a phone (Froyo/GB) OS. Sorry, but to me, that excuse doesn't fly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually they did worry, that's exactly why they made honeycomb you derptard and exactly the reason they aren't releasing the source to honeycomb.
And yes they don't want manufacturers shoehorning a tablet OS into a phone just so they can say OH OUR PHONE HAS ANDROID 3.0 INSTEAD OF 2.3.

Derptard... certainly a new one for the books. haha

[Q] How 'legal' is VegaComb?

I'm a happy user of VegaComb on my advent vega since version 1.7, really love the work of newbi5 and his staff!
But I was woundering, how 'legal' is VegaComb? Is it completly open source or does it use licensed parts? I understood that VegaComb "borrows" parts of codes from other tablet devices, because Android 3.2 is not officially released yet.
So wouldn't that make VegaComb an illegal software, because it uses pieces of codes that's offically owned by the tablet developer (Samsung/Acer/ect.)??

isn't this stuff based on floss? or have i got that wrong?? which means as high and mighty as google are they still have to accept the bds redistribution clause.
can't post outside links but wiki that..

I think it includes Google apps (gmail etc), as far as I remember Cyanogen got a C&D from Google for doing that, now they just offer them as a separate install to get around it
Honeycomb isn't open so not sure how legal it is

Since Honeycomb 3.2 is not open source, I think it's illegal to distribute vegacomb, because the used codes in the rom are partly owned by google and the tablet developer and they did not give permissionto use the code.....
.....or am I wrong?

3.2 was released as open source in July. Check out source dot android dot com.
--A

Andrew123456 said:
3.2 was released as open source in July. Check out source dot android dot com.
--A
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That´s right, actually I posted that news a few months ago

that's not right:
http://source.android.com/source/build-numbers.html
For Honeycomb, the entire platform source code isn't available. However, the parts of Honeycomb licensed under the GPL and LGPL are available under the following tags:
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Click to collapse

ICS just dropped to AOSP

Hi! We just released a bit of code we thought this group might be interested in.
Over at our Android Open-Source Project git servers, the source code
for Android version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is now available.
Here's how to get it:Follow the instructions at
http://source.android.com/source/downloading.htmlCheck out the
'ics-release' branch:repo init -u
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.0.1_r1
That's it! However since this is a large push, please be aware that it
will take some time to complete. If you sync before it's done, you'll
get an incomplete copy that you won't be able to use, so please wait
for us to give the all-clear before you sync.
This is actually the source code for version 4.0.1 of Android, which
is the specific version that will ship on the Galaxy Nexus, the first
Android 4.0 device. In the source tree, you will find a device build
target named "full_maguro" that you can use to build a system image
for Galaxy Nexus. Build configurations for other devices will come
later.
Unfortunately we still don't have our Gerrit code review servers back
online. That remains our top priority though, and we hope to have them
back soon.
This release includes the full history of the Android source code
tree, which naturally includes all the source code for the Honeycomb
releases. However, since Honeycomb was a little incomplete, we want
everyone to focus on Ice Cream Sandwich. So, we haven't created any
tags that correspond to the Honeycomb releases (even though the
changes are present in the history.)
JBQ, on behalf of the AOSP team.
--
Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru
Software Engineer, Android Open-Source Project, Google.
Questions sent directly to me that have no reason for being private
will likely get ignored or forwarded to a public forum with no further
warning.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/browse_thread/thread/4f85d9242667a85f

Just read this on AndroidPolice. Very excited!!!

Game.....on!
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA App

Developers make some rom's!!!!!! (Please)

this thread should make its way over to the development section. Thanks for the find op
Update: Already there

I'm actually curious about how long it will take for someone to make an A500 ICS ROM based on this. There is bound to be someone to do it, but who gets the #1 spot?

Whoever does it, it won't be soon. Build requirements are kinda steep...
https://groups.google.com/group/and...355d4256bdf4906?hl=en_US&lnk=gst&q=16gb&pli=1

They're not necessarily requirements, but more or less just recommendations. A more average computer could still compile ICS, but it will just take a lot longer. And I'm betting Thor will be the first to cook us a ROM. Hopefully soon
Sent from my HTC Glacier using xda premium

FloatingFatMan said:
Whoever does it, it won't be soon. Build requirements are kinda steep...
https://groups.google.com/group/and...355d4256bdf4906?hl=en_US&lnk=gst&q=16gb&pli=1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those are only recommendations for developer workstations. It is certainly possible to compile it even on a low-grade office PC if you give it a week.

Hence my saying it won't be soon...

FloatingFatMan said:
Hence my saying it won't be soon...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your still not understanding my friend. Unless your definition of soon is in 30 minutes. Peter Alfonso that develops for the OG Droid and a few other devices compiled his in about 1 hour and 45 minutes. That was a laptop core i7 and 8gb of ram.
Thats not whats going to be time consuming. The hard part will be finding/getting the hardware inside our devices to work. I asked THOR on his forum about ICS on the iconia, his response:
done know for now... depends how many proprietary stuff the a500 uses....
I'm worried the camera, sensors and battery as these seam to be tampered with...
for the moment I'm busy with other stuff will see when I get some time to sneak a peak at the code...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Time will tell.

I'm sure FFM understands that. As you say, the hard part is getting the hardware to work, but with a slower machine, how many test builds can you do in a day? With a big fast machine that can build in a few hours vs a laptop that might take a few days can make a huge difference of when you get to your final release.
But hey.. i don't know anything, so why don't I just shut up...

It takes about 3.5 hours for me to build a new version of ICS. I'm on a 3 year old laptop which is why it takes so long. It would be great to have a much newer machine to build with as it would help to make things go faster.

So I guess that Google engineer was taling out of his butt then.

[INFO] Linux kernel 3.3 released with merged Android code and more

Quoted from Engadget:
The latest refresh of the Linux kernel, 3.3, is now available, and the second release of 2012 brings with it the long-awaited merging of code from Google's little side project. While that is particularly interesting to developers looking to boot Android or run apps on the stock Linux kernel (FYI: optimized power management and other infrastructure that didn't make it this time will arrive in the next release, 3.4) and represents a resolution to the issues that kept the two apart for so long it's not the only new feature included. There are improvements to file systems like Btrfs, memory management, networking, security and much, much more. Hit the source link below for the full changelog or grab the code and from the usual locations and get your compile on directly.
Source: Engadget, Kernel Newbies, LKML.org
Any devs interested in developing a kernel based on this?
Based on what I read, this release would make it easier for us to compile the kernel as it brings merged Android code.

To me I'm thinking Google will Roll this out to the Nexus Line Up on the Next OTA... Perhaps the delay for the Nexus S if Due To This?
- Google

nice I hope so

iGoogleNexus said:
To me I'm thinking Google will Roll this out to the Nexus Line Up on the Next OTA... Perhaps the delay for the Nexus S if Due To This?
- Google
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt this is due to any delays regarding ota update, AFAIK, the Android devs at Google have all their own modules etc that they roll in to an update etc. This should however make projects like Ubuntu on Android etc easier.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium

glennkaonang said:
Quoted from Engadget:
The latest refresh of the Linux kernel, 3.3, is now available, and the second release of 2012 brings with it the long-awaited merging of code from Google's little side project. While that is particularly interesting to developers looking to boot Android or run apps on the stock Linux kernel (FYI: optimized power management and other infrastructure that didn't make it this time will arrive in the next release, 3.4) and represents a resolution to the issues that kept the two apart for so long it's not the only new feature included. There are improvements to file systems like Btrfs, memory management, networking, security and much, much more. Hit the source link below for the full changelog or grab the code and from the usual locations and get your compile on directly.
Source: Engadget, Kernel Newbies, LKML.org
Any devs interested in developing a kernel based on this?
Based on what I read, this release would make it easier for us to compile the kernel as it brings merged Android code.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been porting Samsung drivers for Nexus S for some time till Linux 3.3 RC3..
Sorry, no fully working results yet due to many code improvements..
But the work is in progress.. I'll also try to write so Samsung to get the info about their plans and/or the results of porting this code to 3.3

novic_dev said:
I have been porting Samsung drivers for Nexus S for some time till Linux 3.3 RC3..
Sorry, no fully working results yet due to many code improvements..
But the work is in progress.. I'll also try to write so Samsung to get the info about their plans and/or the results of porting this code to 3.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your hard work, man.
Anyway, after some readings, I think it's better for us to wait until 3.4 is released.
It is said that 3.4 will finish all the Android code merging process, with many fixes of course.
I'm no dev at all, so this is just a plain opinion from somewhat avid Android user
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium

Cool