Allwinner A10 : Is XBMC ported to MALI-400MP ?
(2012-08-19, 23:54)davilla Wrote: @oliv3r, mali, ump and opengles userland is always closed source on any device. Need an NDA from ARM to get the source code for those but as long as they work as advertised, who really cares. Also, they are system libs and you are permitted to link to system libs under GPL.

All Amlogic userland and kernel drivers are open, they are present in the pivos github. Firmware is closed, it's not likely that one would even have the tools to compile them anyway nor understand the internals of those devices. Again closed source for firmware is permitted and as long as it works, who really cares.

mali is not mainlined back into kernel sources because it is version dependent with userland. Generally forget mainlining arm device sources back to kernel, there are too many different implementations and each has their own tweaks and such. This is not desktop ubuntu here.

The kernel on pivos github IS the android kernel, I just fixit up and configure to work with a linux userland.

In general, you don't need to talk to the VPU, the kernel drivers do that and you want userland access anyway. Talking to the VPU is very complicated and unless you fully understand everything about it, you will epic fail. AML has codecs in userland there so you can roll your own player, or you can use libamlplayer like we did in XBMC.
Oh wow, it saddens me to see your standpoint with regard to the binary blobs.

Having firmware be closed is acceptable, under the GPL and even in FOSS terms. Ideally, even firmware should be open though.

Having the binary blobs for the mali GPU closed, is just a huge step back and will cause problems in the end. A step back, as Both intel and AMD show, that it's quite possible to have Open Source Video drivers. You can argue that 'this isn't ubuntu Desktop', but why not? You can use one of these socs, and make very low powerd desktops from them?

I think the whole point of opensource, is not having a blob somewhere and 'as long as it works, who cares'. Why would we want to use things like Linux in the first place? Anyway, that's a discussion for elsewhere entirely.

I don't know on which bits the lima driver leans for the mali, but if you say that the opensource kernel bits and userland bits are that dependant on eachother, chances are the Lima driver has its own KMS bit. Luckly lima is slowly progressing further and further, because some people actually do care Smile

Back to Amlogic, if all amlogic userland and kernel drivers are open (except the mali driver of course) then a fully FOSS device can be built, correct? Or is the VPU userland also binary only? With VPU support, I didn't really mean kernel/userland mode, but rather binary only mode, again, firmware is okay to be closed blob.
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RE: Allwinner A10 : Is XBMC ported to MALI-400MP ? - by oliv3r - 2012-08-20, 13:02
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