On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 12:05:53AM -0700, Andrea Venturi wrote: > Hi Kevin, > > as a casual "tinkerer" of Allwinner (AW) SOCs, let me tell you i appreciate > A LOT AW attitude and commitment for becoming more and more a "proper > citizen" in the free software and open source community. This release is a > step in a continuous process BUT is surely a step in the right direction. > THANX! > > i really think AW, since the last few years, has been doing a breakthrough > revolution in the so called "internet of things" (IoT) space.. not really > because there are new features implemented in its SOCs but because AW is > packing SO MUCH stuff in a cost effective chip that's enabling the next > level of pervasive computing. > > you are permitting a world of programmable toys that can be effectively > used and enable new products; i started playing with A10 some years ago > with Tom Cubie's Cubieboard, but i'll cite also Olimex open source boards > and Luke Leighton's EOMA86 effort as very interesting developments born > thanx to your business proposition; now we are seeing the new H3 sold for > 25$ as dev card, Orange PI mini 2, and the next to come Kickstarter > campaign for a $9 board named CHIP.. it a staggering progression.. > > so the SOC is surely beefy, but for it to become cornerstone of new > projects for advised people like the ones embodied in the linux-sunxi > community, it has to be dependable i.e. you want it to be available and > controllable for ever as software development progresses (and as we can see > in the open source model, the snowball becomes avalanche pretty fast). > > that's why full disclosure and "datasheets" are more preferred than "code > drops" as the latter is just a single representation (in the writer mindset > and in the writer context) of a use case, the former gives everyone the > "freedom" to do its own evaluation and choice and development/integration. > > coming to Cedarx, i for first believe everything now is going in the right > direction toward full disclosure, and that's a GOOD THING. i suppose this > is happening because the HW core is more or less exclusive of Allwinner > chips. > > a really different issue is around the 2D/3D MALI 400MP core that's the > last unknown big "black box" of the actual AW bulk lineup (i'll keep the > PowerVR stuff out of my way with a 10 feet pole.. :-) > > i understand that, as it's a graphic core used in many competitors chips > too, it's difficult for any chip house to step in and make a liberal move, > surely it's a CORE out of chipmaker control as it's ARM own, then there's > also the ARM "attitude" toward open community (well explained by libv > mails) that's not helping too, here. > > it's something that surely has to be dealt in the future someway; anyway i > would really appreciate a public statement from AW official on the matter > (AW as a pretty huge ARM customer could make the difference here and get > back some good PR recognition on this issue..)
Supposed open source shops like Linaro, Jolla and Mozilla are not going there. Everyone is afraid of the big bad GPU providing troll in the corner. So i have little hope that a small fry like Allwinner, who until recently was happy to hide behind the chinese wall with respect to copyright violations, would invest any significant business and or political weight into pushing that troll into the right direction. > at the end of the day, I understand AW (as all chipmakers) is living a hard > time, having to be competitive EVERY day in this chip business (where the > bulk of sales and revenues is on products like low cost Android tablets > where end users are not interested into this kind of "IP issues" and > development models..) so it struggles to find the right balance in the mix > between hiding the "secret sauce of the kitchen" and sharing info with > community who boosts development. > > let me tell i believe anyway AW would deserve at least the same public > recognition that's going toward Raspi/Broadcom because they are key > enablers of the open "makers" ecosystem and this could be a powerful > business game changer in the longer term IMHO. > > so hat tip to Allwinner and keep up this good work with the growingly open > attitude you are showing toward us, the people, your final customers in the > end.. Yes, and no. Here it is a very obvious legal matter. Allwinner has no choice but to do this after (L)GPLed code has been discovered, or for kernel or uboot code. It would have been nice if we wouldn't have had to revert to the route of massive marketing damage to convince Allwinner to meet its legal obligations. Let's just hope that this course of action will now no longer be needed, and that Allwinner simply delivers upon its obligations, and perhaps exceeds them, as they only stand to gain from that. Luc Verhaegen. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "linux-sunxi" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to linux-sunxi+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
