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Posted Nov 19, 2010 0:33 UTC (Fri) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402)
In reply to: It's not *search* that matters, it's *ads* by jmm82
Parent article: Did Google Arm Its Own Enemies With Android? (HBR)

"The Linux kernel will still benefit as a whole by a Linux/Google desktop by gaining hardware driver support"

Really? Exactly how many Free SoC GPU drivers did we get from android? Android runs on pretty much all available SoC GPUs, and there are - precisely - zero free drivers available for any of them.

And those Free drivers that android has produced mostly live in a separate tree and the general opinion is that they aren't of high enough quality to go into mainline.

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Posted Nov 19, 2010 8:02 UTC (Fri) by swetland (guest, #63414) [Link] (1 responses)

We have three GPU vendors releasing the kernel side (resource and queue management) as GPLv2. That, to my mind, is some nice progress. Would it be nicer if the userspace side were also open source? Certainly. Is that likely to happen at this point in time, given the US patent system being what it is, etc? Seems like a stretch. How many fully open source hw OpenGL driver stacks exist for desktop Linux?

Regarding the assorted other SoC and peripheral drivers that have resulted from 5 years of Android, well, those drivers are all GPLv2 and people can do whatever they like with 'em. Even rewrite 'em if they don't like them the way they are. I know the folks who had been doing Linux ports to Qualcomm based HTC devices, for example, have found some value there.

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Posted Nov 19, 2010 14:31 UTC (Fri) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

"That, to my mind, is some nice progress."

_Very_ little. If anything it's proof of how much these companies just don't get it.

"How many fully open source hw OpenGL driver stacks exist for desktop Linux?"

Well the idea is that there should be one stack which drivers just have to plug in to. This is partly the idea of Gallium3D. A vendor can release a Gallium3D driver, get support for all the Gallium state trackers and not have to reveal any of the proprietary details of how they implement the higher layers.

But currently we have full support for intel GPUs and quite good support for most radeons.