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

Wow.. they're EMBRACING open-source for their version of Android. HUGE respect from me on that! I'll have to keep an eye on Samsung for my next Android purchase, methinks!

http://www.androidcentral.com/samsun...ode-developers

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

That read like a love letter to me.

This is awesome!!

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

yummy! if only the captivate and vibrant had hardware keyboards like the epic....it's what all the kool kids want

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

Time for Nokia to step up, methinks.

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

It's got TV-out via headphone jack, a six-axis accellerometer (!!!) and 5mp camera (no flash, though.. grr), small SMALL form factor.. I mean, really, with the exception of the lack of camera flash and keyboard, if they open-sourced its drivers and they're allowing the community to fix bugs and problems FOR them, it's easily an N900 killer.

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

Let's put meego on it then.

And by "let's" I mean you lot.

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

I would like to think that having a physical keyboard figured into most people's consideration when they bought the N900. I certainly wouldn't buy something without one and hence no N900 killer.

"... a download link to the open portions of the Captivate and Vibrant source code .."

I haven't looked, but wording sounds like not all of it is opened - I would be very much surprised if any manufacturer can fully open source the whole OS.

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

Are they? When I read "open portions", it tells me that it isn't all open source, which is the same situation with the N900. I think you need more information about what they have released before you can claim it is an N900 killer.

It is still good news for open source, tho.

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

What about all the 770/N800/N810/N810WE people that either preferred to make it lighter without a keyboard (the way MOST phones are being done these days) or couldn't care either way, or even still would prefer it but for all the advantages would even give it up? You're assuming, while I'm leaving open the possibility of a series of other combinations of N900 owners (or those of us who preferred to wait for something better).

I, for one, wouldn't mind a keyboard but I'm just as happy without one. (Hell, I barely use the one on my Droid except only when I'm ssh'ing around because it's just easier that way.) Hell, on both my N800 and my Droid, if I'm going to be deep into typing a lot, I usually just unfold my pocket-sized folded, full-size unfolded, bluetooth keyboard.

Yeah, agreed there. My initial reaction was elation but I've since settled back down to my cynical seating position and I'm skeptically re-reading the wording and waiting to hear more details. Still, I like that they at least have put themselves into the position of embracing the open-source community. Not that we didn't already hear this sort of speech before from Nokia.

I like to imagine the Penguins from the Madigascar movie eying this suspiciously and saying, "Wait and see, boys. Wait and see."

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

I guess they would have to select parts on that basis, or use their purchasing clout to "encourage" vendors to open licence their drivers. Samsung seems like they are in a good position to do that. Unlike Nokia.

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

If they really are opening even just the drivers and possibly boot ROM info, I imagine this would both be possible and VERY VERY interesting to see. I wouldn't be able to do this sort of thing--but I can imagine many others in the community who probably can and would jump at it. I would LOVE to see that--might even prefer it over an open Android. Not sure. I would have to see the advantages either would have.

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

I personally like the front facing camera.

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

Me too. But I'd give it up in a heartbeat for a fully opened device, if Samsung is going that route.

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

For sure. MeeGo on non-consortium hardware would be a huge win, a real step in the direction of freedom, and MeeGo becomes a proper hardware vendor independent linux distribution.

In my rosy and perhaps naive vision of the future it would only take a couple of big players to release their drivers to the kernel (and whatever else is required to the tree) before Meego momentum got underway and they all started doing it.

I fully expect to see this happen with in 10 years or so.

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

Samsung MeeGo says, "No, YOU GO" to Nokia's closed-mindedness!
What a glorious headline that could be. :) I wonder if Samsung would agree?

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

my thoughts verbatim (thought i would use a word other than 'exactly')

as for the hardware keyboard, every phone should have two versions, one with ('name of phone here' pro)and one without ('name of phone here')! HAHA JK! that was a joke everyone :P

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

We'll see.

Dumping tarballs and .zip files on the community is at best base participation and can't compete with open repositories you can do a git clone of.

Skeptical, but downloading anyway.

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

Ok. I've been teetering on the edge of getting a Captivate since it's been offered to me by AT&T three times already... and I might just jump on it now.

This... is friggin' awesome news.

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

Without trying to play down this, but isn't the wording a little like it's the parts they're obliged to open source like other vendors do?

That said, I'm giving them the benefit of a doubt and grabbing it too..

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

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that they're obligated to open is the Linux kernel they distributed. I expect somewhat modified Android sources and no real hardware drivers.

Yup.

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.

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

I've got some kind of deja-vu.

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

To borrow a line about how people were taking up for Maemo... "it's more open than most..."

If it works for here, it'll work there. Period.

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

No kidding. If I'm to believe what we're told so far, even with just this cursory examination, it appears to be even more open than Maemo.

That's saying quite a lot and makes Android that much more attractive as a Linux based environment with the best of both the Android environments and Debian (if you go get the Debian package for rooted Android--which, in this case, any open-sourced Android would effectively BE).

If nothing else, this would also be a fantastic kick-in-the-pants to Motorola from Samsung, too. :)

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

I fixed that for you. It is emphasising my point at the same time.

too much talking about miracles and too little about the facts.
Some guys should cool down a lot, you probably can figure out who I am referring to by yourself...

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

Oops! You messed up your fix. I've corrected that back for you. He was right the first time.

Indeed. The facts do seem to speak for themselves so far.

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

Right, got non-corrupted download. Same situation as stated in earlier analysis, nothing changed. Some nice drivers but a lot of 'wtf' moments like the PowerVR drivers being closed source.

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

You fixed nothing. The facts about what will happen and what has happened are pretty clear to the objective folks.

This is good news. I gave fCam also an equal statement... that was good news.

MeeGo. So far... well yeah. It's coming. I'll leave it at that.

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

Pff... why is PowerVR always so damned closed-minded? >.<
Anyway, at least there's a LOT of open stuff. I'm not sure it's all that much better than Maemo as far as getting more hardware component drivers?

I wonder if Samsung might be able to provide a trickle bit more if it's requested? Certainly, if we've had to deal with a two-faced manufacturer like Nokia, we can probably put some weight to bear on Samsung as well to push components to be more open.

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

I love my n900 and maemo, still. But i'd reverse that statement. IMHO it (going open source half way) doesn't work here and it doesn't work there. :rolleyes:

Yeah kind of, but not to the point that i'm satisfied as a user and developer.

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

To my knowledge the drivers are open source from the DDK, like the key one, pvrsrvkm - there's no good reason why these should be closed source and it wonders me a bit.

Initial reaction to this is that it's just the parts they have to publish due to GPL and such and I suspect the kernel drivers have already been published in the samsung trees (excepting the closed source ones..).

So, just another vendor doing the bare minimum :/

Check out for http://opensource.samsung.com/ and 'Mobile' for other instances of the same case..