ATI to provide specs (was: Re: SMedia 3362)

[Harald Welte]

On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 12:10:48PM -0700, Shawn Rutledge wrote:
> On 9/10/07, Harald Welte <laforge at openmoko.org> wrote:
>
> > So what exactly is not enough?  You will get 100% free software drivers,
> > down to the latest bit, no proprietary firmware whatsoever, plus
> > hardware documentation that will be prepared by OpenMoko ?
> 
> I didn't understand before that it would end up being 100% open
> source.  

We always said it would be entirely open source.  Anything else is not
acceptable!

> I thought you had to sign an NDA?  But if the driver is to be
> completely open, and the documents are to be completely open too, what
> is the purpose of the NDA?  

The purpose of the NDA is to prevent OpenMoko from releasing the WinCE
driver source code and/or the original documentation (or portions
thereof), at least not without explicit approval from Smedia.

The new free driver based on that infromation is explicitly excluded.
It always depends on the exact wording of the NDA, what informaiton is
not supposed to be disclosed, etc.!

> No, getting it working is the more important of the two, of course.
> But as someone else pointed out, maybe there is the possibility that
> someone outside your small team could help, if the NDA doesn't prevent
> it.

no, that's impossible.

> What kind of driver are you planning on?  (I don't think I saw that
> answered yet, sorry if I missed it)  KDrive, DRI, etc...

We don't disclose this information yet, sorry.  As soon as there is
something working, it will be in our subversion, though.

> Well the choices for open hardware are always slim, so far.  I just
> thought some people might be putting more emphasis on OpenGL ES
> support than openness.  

To us, the openness is alwayts the primary issue at stake.

-- 
- Harald Welte <laforge at openmoko.org>          	        http://openmoko.org/
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Software for the world's first truly open Free Software mobile phone