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Android opens door to IC open source (EE Times)
The EE Times takes
a look at the Android mobile operating system demonstrations at the
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. "One open question is what it
will mean to be an "open source" semiconductor manufacturer in a market as
competitive as mobile-handset applications processors. Several
semiconductor manufacturers are active members in the Open Handset
Alliance, a group of technology and mobile companies committed to deploy
handsets and services using the Android platform. Among them are leading
handset chip makers Broadcom, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm."
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Android opens door to IC open source (EE Times) Posted Feb 15, 2008 20:19 UTC (Fri) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] Hm... I scanned the article, and as far as I can tell they are just talking about the fact that kernel modules have to be GPLed because of Linux's GPL licence. Other than that, there is no requirement for Android components to be open sourced. Why are this journalist and these conference attendees talking about Android leading to open source, as contrasted with any other Linux-based device?
Android opens door to IC open source (EE Times) Posted Feb 15, 2008 20:59 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html "Android will be open source" It's just a promise right now... We'll have to wait and see if this actually becomes true.
Android opens door to IC open source (EE Times) Posted Feb 15, 2008 21:05 UTC (Fri) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] I think there is some fuzziness about the meaning of the term "android" in the sentence "android will be open source". Certainly google has repeatedly and clearly said that android will be closed-source-friendly, i.e. no licensing requirements or business pressure for partners to open source their android-related components. I agree, we can wait and see. While we're waiting, maybe we can hack on the already-open-source OpenMoko. ;-) Regards, Zooko
Android opens door to IC open source (EE Times) Posted Feb 15, 2008 21:21 UTC (Fri) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] The article's argument is that, while Linux developers are used to the FOSS model, semiconductor companies are for the large part not familiar with it. Having to GPL their device drivers is a big change for them, and the article focuses (repeating the point several times, even) on the ability of competitors to see their code, and in particular "Chinese manufacturers" - somewhat xenophobic, I'd say. Anyhow, the general point is that by supplying hardware for Android, you must GPL your drivers. If you have secret stuff in them, then that's now in plain view. Not working in the semiconductor business myself, I don't know the implications of this, but it seems to me that these hardware companies are mainly competing on, well, hardware, and less on software. But I might be wrong. The more obvious problem with the article's fear is that, given the large number of serious partners in the Android platform, apparently there are plenty/enough manufacturers that are fine with the GPL model, so it seems a moot point.
They are competing on hardware, but... Posted Feb 17, 2008 11:20 UTC (Sun) by khim (guest, #9252) [Link] Interface is big part of hardware, you know. And you can patch flaws with driver. The only visible part when driver is closed-source is driver's interface - and that's not a problem since it's designed by Microsoft (Sun, whatever) not manufacturer so there are no any secrets. When you publish the driver which actually talks to hardware you always have possibility of showing "too much". That being said it's all looks pretty stupid to me: modern hardware is so complex that to recreate is starting from driver is major problem - easier to design your own... The only case to worry is when software is major part of package (remember WinModems?), but I don't know how often that happens nowadays...
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