Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Nokia is now a legacy device, not a current hardware platform. Its about time Nokia release the firmware and drivers as open source and bring these into mainline kernel.

Give the N900 users the freedom to use their device as they want. Complete freedom, not almost freedom :)


Thanks for a great phone!

And just hurry up releasing n950 for general public with GRUB dual boot maemo and meego with desktop choice between default and plasma active :D

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Hope dies last .

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Some drivers are intelectual ownership of other companies, so Nokia cannot release them (maybe even they don't have complete sources of all drivers). However, I would vote for our Council (who won the election? Estel?:D) to try to contact these companies and ask them if they could release some sources maybe (or tech specs or anything)p if this has not happened yet in the past.

Just for the record: GRUB supports x86/x86_64 architectures only (i.e. computers which are able to run desktop version of Windows, if a device is not able to run that => it won't run GRUB). It's UBOOT that you want ;) (this one is for embedded systems and also works on e.g. Nokia N900).

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

The N900 uses the PowerVR SGX for it's graphics produced by Imagination Technologies, so they're the ones you should be yelling at.
And I'm guessing it'll be a cold day in Hell before they release the drivers.

However, a quick Bing revealed this:
Reverse Engineering PowerVR SGX

Seems a similar project to those that brought us the ATI Catalyst drivers and eqivalent nVidia versions, although it wasn't long before ATI and nVidia stepped in, paid the developers for their efforts and then closed them down.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

The latest galium related commit is 7 hours old, and the latest nouveau related commit 26 hours old.. Did ATI and nVidia close these projects this morning? Or is that not what you are talking about at all? :confused:

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Yeah, like they did for 770, N800 & N810 users. Friendly advise: don't hold your breath.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

again someone asking nokia to release code not owned by them... If you want drivers open sourced, figure out what hw is there and who's manufacturing the part in question and contact them. It's not up to Nokia.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

+1
Allthough, in some cases it may (or may not) be possible (impossible) for Nokia to get in touch with certain third parties for releasing the source. Probably not, to my knowledge, but certainly Nokia would count a greater mandate than we (council).

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

AFAIK, the only smartphone which had full opensource drivers was the OpenMoko GTA1/2.

I'd like Nokia to be able to release full specs or source code, but it has been a long time I didn't believed in Santa Claus...

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Oh the 2012 Q2 "Nokia should give us the closed components of fremantle" thread I was wondering when would this come up.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Are you sure? My information may be outdated, but I remember them struggling with GPS and GSM modem drivers (maybe some other ones too, it was few years ago when I read that), are they finally open?

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

List of things that absolutely need to be opened:
PowerVR SGX driver

MeeGo/Nemo already has mce, ofono, etc.

Good luck pushing ImgTec to open that thing.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

If you want answers, ask proper questions.

For instance,

1. why not to request for opening MEIF protocol (used for (A)GPS in Nokia devices)?
See also: http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/li...0/8/23/4609917

2. BME or open-source replacement. Or, at least, open library that may be used to get current charging/battery status (w/o interacting with BME).

3. SGX? Ask Imatec, not Nokia.

..And so on..

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

and the camera too...
we have seen mods of vga(video) capable devices pulled till 720p... since N900 has already reached 720p mark....

we it being done.. we can reach 1080p mark(with good encodng & proper fps)

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

According to http://wiki.maemo.org/Fremantle_closed_packages (this is ther 3rd time I'm quoting this page this week), camera-firmware is already open source ;)

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

As answered in previous discussions like this one: Nokia is not considering the relicensing of any of its software components released with Fremantle. About Harmattan, the pieces that were meant to be opened were already published in the context of the MeeGo project.

There is nothing new to discuss. Collaboration around the Mer of CSSU community projects is probably the best way to invest your time.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Mods, please kill this thread ;) Thanks.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

https://gitorious.org/libbmeipc/libbmeipc
https://gitorious.org/hald-addon-bme/hald-addon-bme

Want to help?

@all:
TBH I don't see anything of a major importance besides SGX driver(which source code is not a property of Nokia). And it will be REd at some point. Really, those requests are pointless.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Cool :-) Are these N900-specific or do they apply to the OMAP2 generation as well?

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

I believe Pali has written a rather marvelous kernel module for the charging chip. That in combination with the BQ27x00 module more or less negates the need for BME anymore.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Yes! exactly!

all the hardware in N900 is legacy/non commercial anno 2012.


I have Uboot. That doesnt mean that GRUB should not be ported to mobile devices and arm/armel.

How else am I suppose to install proper Linux and dual boot that with Android on a samsung or htc device?

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

It may die last, but still dies.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Probadly yes, because that chip is still selling by Texas and if you take some time to check homepage at TI instead of whine here you see there is a driver that cannot be distribuated and is not open! You have similar issues with Pandaboard, Beagleboard and also RaspberryPi if I remember right.

Same goes for some Intel embedded GFX chips like GMA500. And ofcourse NVidia and ATI.

Do never expect anything to be fully open source that will never ever happen...

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Or like this.....

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

I hope that a message saying "Mods, please kill this thread" is not all that is required to kill a thread in this brave new world. Worthless threads are allowed to persist all the time, no matter how hot sh t a person objecting to them is.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

As far as I'm concerned, even binary kernel modules containing drivers for e.g. gfx chip (and other stuff that doesn't have open drivers), but built against newer kernel (by the company that manufactures these chips), would be better then nothing, as it would allow usage of newer kerel as base. This thread is quite pointless, but - just out of curiosity - did that or something similar happen in the past (for any device)?

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

There are no closed source kernel drivers in N900, N950, N9.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

SGX driver source we need is for userland, not kernel.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

He plays it smart ;)

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Even this would be somewhat acceptable.
Problem ofcourse is that everything is overly interdependent in Maemo, and the most interdependent parts are secret.

What I would like is to be able to build very customer kernels myself, from newer base. For example 2.38 kernel has a big important performance change.

The "Powerkernel" is still restricted to being the same version kernel as the one shipped, right?

I mean, I will not cry if you say that it's me that is too stupid to build my own kernel, but current status sure does not make it easier.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

If the Noveau guys can reverse engineer the NVIDIA drivers, why hasn't someone done the same thing for the PowerVR drivers?
Lack of interest? Legal issues/concerns/threats? Difficulty of doing it?

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

How's that openness coming along?

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

About the only hardware in the N900 that isn't documented in some form is the 'GPU and the GPS, as far as I know everything else is documented and understood (e.g. cellmo is documented through ofono)

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

Ask TI for gfx driver.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

actually there is 1.4 driver available for download from TI (maemo5 has 1.3). Still, it is closed source binary. Yet I fail to see the reason what exactly you want gfx source for? Who and what is stopping the lack of the source code.

And for the GPS - you can find some (incomplete?) driver source over the inet.

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

I seem to recall (enfasis on seem) that the GSM modem stack/drivers MUST be closed source to pass the FCC requirements as otherwise IMEI spoofing and other illegal activities can be accomplished, it would not surprise me if the EU had a similar requirement ;)


Uhm... Uboot?? I have Android, Maemo and Ubuntu booting with Uboot with no troubles on an N900, sure the same can be done with other devices, one does not need grub on this platform as far as I am aware (if it brings any advantages over uboot please inform me, learning is always good :D )

Re: Nokia, its time to release driver specs!! Open the drivers!!
 

The GSM modem firmware (which runs on a separate CPU) is closed source and for good reason.
There is nothing in the regulations that requires the interface libraries to remain closed source (if there was, ofono would be illegal as a large amount of the N900 support was contributed by Nokia people IIRC)

Pls release the source (again)
 

If you want to do something for this community then i very strongly suggest you get the FULL release of Maemo and Meego source and all components released to this community because untill this happens this community will never put together anything in the way of an OS for any Nokia device.

The Wiki tell's lies by the way because Maemo is NOT developed by this community, how can it be when this community has no access to source from Nokia.

For any developer to do his job then he must have 100% full access to all source and components, without this he can not develop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maemo

Read the wikipedia entry because it is complete rubbish.....

"Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets.[1] It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it. The platform comprises the Maemo operating system and the Maemo SDK.

Maemo is mostly based on open source code"

Only when the code is completely open and fall's TRULY into the FOSS catagory will it have any chance of being developed by anyone other than Nokia who hold the source in full.

CSSU prove's that it is just no way possible to develop or improve either Maemo or Meego further than it has been developed by Nokia without full access to source.

Please see this for what it really is now after over 3 years of "development" by this community !!!.

Re: Migrating to Community-driven Infrastructure - Step 1: Inventory
 

abill_uk: Nokia will not open any Fremantle or Harmattan components. It's a clear message, repeated many times. There is nothing Kate or myself can do to change this, no matter how hard you try in this forum.

Wikipedia is a collaborative project encouraging any contributors to improve any aspect of its content. Have you tried? If not I can recommend it. I have been volunteering in my free time, but never in anything Maemo (or MeeGo, Qt etc) related since it is generally discouraged that company employees write about their products. For instance, I don't think Nokia employees have done any significant contribution to that page.

But we are digressing. Back to topic and thank you Kate for digging the details with Nemein.