[diabloss]

Hello Kodi Team

It seems after a lot of time and debates and fights and all kind of legal /non legal gpl and non gpl stuff the Allwinner (A80) CedarX 2.0 vpu/gpu code is public.

https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec

My question is simple, will be able to use Linux Kodi with gpu/vpu hardware aceleration on Allwinner SoC's any time soon?

Thank you for reading and considering

[wsnipex]

from a very quick look, this seems like the usual allwinner bullshit "release". Binary libs, instead of full source.

[RockerC]

Binary userspace driver libs can be acceptable if done the right way, such as for Amlogic VPU and almost all GPU userspace drivers.

The questions is if Allwinner have now both released code for all the "right parts" and released that code under proper open source licenses?

http://linux-sunxi.org/GPL_Violations#CedarX

At least it looks as some employees at Allwinner are now replying to complaints about license violations:
https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec/issues
http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-...10447.html
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...se-Updates

Probably best to ask about all that over at the linux-sunxi community http://linux-sunxi.org and wait for a valid confirmation from there first.

Regardless due to the history I doubt anyone here will be jumping to add this themselves to Kodi right away.

Expect a "patches are welcomed" reply from team Kodi even if all needed code is now there and the licensing are finally copacetic.

[diabloss]

Licensing seems to be solved (more or less)
https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-co...er/LICENSE

According to Cubieboard 4 linaro trusty ubuntu based OS on A80 platform foundable here
http://dl.cubieboard.org/model/cc-a80/Im...report.pdf
almost all type of video content is properly decoded (more or less)....except maybe h265 and few more less usual video formats.

I have tried to install kodi package.... but when launching it i have only black screen.
Sunxi not very interested into porting Kodi or making it to work on allwinner SoC's

As for AW seems they have new management which showing more opening to the desires of users and developers so i think it should be a start after all somewhere.

I am a regular user and tbh i like the brute power of A80 and i would like it with OpenElec / Kodi runing.

[RockerC]

Licensing seems to be solved (more or less)

Nope, unfortunately it sound like they still have some ways to go before they are are no longer in violation, at least not with the code and binaries that they have released so far. Read:

http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/03/23/a...ce-update/
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...ating-Code
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...-Violating
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...late-Proof
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/...KyOR4gxYgY
https://www.mail-archive.com/linux-sunxi...10698.html

Probably no go for a viable GPL/LGPL license compliant implementation for Kodi as it looks right now, as Allwinner implementation is still violating LGPL licenses so it's still not GPL compliant.

Sunxi not very interested into porting Kodi or making it to work on allwinner SoC's

Only reason why linux-sunxi community is not interested is because all existing working CedarX implementations still violate open source licenses, and surely the same goes for team Kodi.

All we can really do now is to wait until Allwinner gets serious about open source compliance and make a real effort to release an implementation that is full GPL/LGPL compliant.

[wink]

Allwinner have released full source code of CedarX2.0 now.

[RockerC]

Allwinner have released full source code of CedarX 2.0 now.

Have they? Have they now really released the full SOURCE CODE and not just a mixture of source code and binary librarys as before?

If they really released the full source code now are they also fully compying with the open source licenses and license their source code files correctly too?

Last I read here they still violate GPL and LGPL open source licenses, read these new news posts:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n...-Violation
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...r-Joins-LF

[dhead]

Have they? Have they now really released the full SOURCE CODE and not just a mixture of source code and binary librarys as before?

It seem like there are no blobs anymore, in the initial release there were shared binary libs of the video encoder and decoder and now the sources of these libs are available.
Edit: Oh wait, they still pulling binary shared libs from https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec-lib with the git submodule

Personally I had a bad experience with two "low powered" Allwinner based devices, the SoC was overheating and freeze up, open sourcing vpu libs won't make me buy these devices.

As expected crappy documentation

Code:

## option for chip config.
OPTION_CHIP_1623 = 1
OPTION_CHIP_1625 = 2
OPTION_CHIP_1633 = 3
OPTION_CHIP_1651 = 4
OPTION_CHIP_1650 = 5
OPTION_CHIP_1661 = 6
OPTION_CHIP_1667 = 7
OPTION_CHIP_1639 = 8
OPTION_CHIP_1673 = 9
OPTION_CHIP_1680 = 10
OPTION_CHIP_1681 = 11
OPTION_CHIP_1689 = 12

sunxi-tools explain some of these (AFAIK these are all the ARM based SoC from Allwinner)

Code:

    const char *soc_name="unknown";
    switch (buf.soc_id) {
    case 0x1623: soc_name="A10";break;
    case 0x1625: soc_name="A13";break;
    case 0x1633: soc_name="A31";break;
    case 0x1651: soc_name="A20";break;
    case 0x1650: soc_name="A23";break;
    case 0x1639: soc_name="A80";break;
    }

p.s. 18K line of configure script can't be normal.

[RockerC]

Edit: Oh wait, they still pulling binary shared libs from https://github.com/allwinner-zh/media-codec-lib with the git submodule

Yes still sound like they are violating GPL/LGPL and not releasing full source code, and believe this is the same libraires that linux-sunxi.org team highlighted here http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...ating-Code

[wsnipex]

p.s. 18K line of configure script can't be normal.

/opt/src/kodi $ wc -l configure
35581 configure

[dhead]

@wsnipex

[Memphiz]

yep having only(!) 18k lines can't be right

[rellla]

They still violate the GPL/LGPL, because what they did now is only a complete rewrite of their video engine userspace driver. There still isn't any source code release for the binaries, which they released (or were kind of leaked) in history and are blamed for GPL violation.
The new driver includes support for H264 and MPEG1/2/4 (with source code released) and the rest of the codecs is included via a closed library (without sources). But I have not tested that myself... and won't do.
The funny thing is, that the opened codecs H264 and MPEG1/2/4 have already been reverse engineered and are implemented in a libvdpau backend - for Allwinner there was nothing basic to hide anymore.
So, if anyone is interested in supporting A10/A20 for kodi, i suggest to start with the REed driver... The code should be ready, it only has to be done.

Regards
rellla

[Klaus88]

Hi there,

I have been following this problem for a lot of time and a question comes to my mind.

Why don't you push Allwinner to go via non-gpl module like ATI/AMD and Nvidia?

[Memphiz]

Why would we do that. We enforce open source as much as possible because thats the spirit of any open source project.