Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Initial analysis:

Kernel
* Open: wifi, Camera, FM radio, vibrator driver, touchsense, 'PDP Muxer/Demuxer'
* Bad things: Seems to include closed source s3c_bc, LCD, closed source pvrsrvkm (come on, it's open source in TI's packages..)

Platform:

* Some Netscape plugin gateway, looks incomplete to build
* Bunch of blobs (BRCM adaptation..)

That said, my download was corrupted so there might be more than I see, but initially, it looks like a bad mix of blobs and even closed source kernel modules.. so thumbs down from my side so far :/

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Shouldn't you report when your download isn't corrupt as opposed to giving out only a limited amount of information?

I mean no disrespect, but it just seems odd to not do it... properly.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Hmm.. SOOOOOO far it sounds at least as open as Nokia's Maemo sources/blobs so far. But really? The TI driver is a blob while there's an open copy laying around somewhere? :P

But, as said earlier, let's see what you find when you get the WHOLE thing properly.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

At least for kernel I think it's complete as it extracted that file without issue and no errors - no truncation there. I'm re-downloading and re-iterating to give a proper report.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Just so you don't wonder, it's 8:50am in the morning - too early for bias, I'm not trying to persuade anything is less open than Nokias (which at a blooming 43% OSS isn't exactly the prettiest girl in the class), just stating what I see as blockers for actual use of these provided bits in an open system/maintainable.

Looking forward to getting a non-corrupted build. But yes, I really hope they're not as stupid as to provide a binary-only build of PVR when the upstream driver is GPL..

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Were the .tar files truncated then the extraction would have failed. There's trailing junk in the gzip, but the .tar files themselves are fine. I'm not sure what Samsung did to the file, but the file is broken as it exists on their server.

It's less open, since any changes they've made are buried in the source. If this had been a repo we could have checked out from, then we wouldn't have hit the screwed up file issue -and- we'd have the revision history, hopefully back to the point that they checked it out from the primary repos.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Hmm... I wonder if their repo is available (or going to be) as well? Otherwise it's time to whip out BeyondCompare or some other comparison tools. Buh.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Sounds good but a capacitive virtual key board can sometimes leave a lot to be desired.

I have used the physical keyboard on my N900 maybe a handful of times and often wondered what all the fuss was about. The virtual keyboard on the N900's resistive display is that good. :)

I have also been trying to get accustomed to the virtual keyboard on my wife's glass Android that doesn't have a physical keyboard but the number of mistakes and "do overs" has left me wishing more times than not, that it did have a physical keyboard just to get through a painful and time consuming simple query.


I can't remember from you past posts if you have used a capactive scrreen before. If not, do yourself a favor and try one out before leaping in. :)

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

I'm a 3 year vet of hating... I mean using and adapting to a capacitive touch screen without incident.

Re: Samsung Captivate - Samsung is OPEN-SOURCING their drivers and other code!
 

Although, on my Droid, I have a glass screen capacitive onscreen keyboard, a slide-out keyboard and the 2.1's voice-dictation keyboard.

More often than not, I prefer voice-dictation over any kind of keyboard but I still use the on-screen keyboard to correct or punctuate the dictation. Between a tiny-key keyboard and onscreen keyboard, I still tended to prefer the touchscreen keyboard even back when I was on 2.0 (where there wasn't any voice recognition keyboard input).

I also still have my N800 and I MUCH preferred the resistive screen with stylus over the capacitive--so we agree there. Multi-touch is vastly overrated and I really much prefer using a stylus over a finger, even if it meant I have a piece I could lose. (I mostly blame Nokia for that stress--since my old Palm computers were NEVER at a shortage for spare stylus accessories that fit into the slot in the unit.)

For sliding your fingers around, capacitive seems much more fluid and natural. For pin-point precision and tapping a point, I so much more prefer resistive. In any circumstance, I really am not a fan of these slide-out tiny keyboards. That's what I use folding bluetooth keyboards with full-sized keys for.