On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 13:15:05 -0700 "Steven Kurylo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> babbled:
> > Google does contribute to various open source projects, but they sure as > > hell don't seem to drink the punch. > > > > Thanks for the info, that completely defines my view of Android. > > The kernel still uses the GPL, so they have to respect that. However > the new hardware drivers could be done the same way nvidia does it. > > They said their custom software will all use the apache license. So a > phone carrier could take the software stack, close the source, and add > their custom bits on top leaving you with a system thats just as > closed as the current phones. It will be interesting to see what > happens. what a lot of people miss is - a lot of important "drivers" can and do get done in userspace - graphics (x) for example. gsm etc. (you need to talk to a serial device - but the protocol specs may or may not be published - in our case its a standard at commandset - but it may not be). same with a lot of usb devices - they may register as a device - but how to make it do things - requires knowing the higher level protocol. sure. debugging/reverse engineering the info out of it would become easier, but - it doesn't need to be in the kernel and thus can be any license you like, so there are many ways to avoid the kernel's gpl. not for all things - but quite possibly for key important things (gsm or graphics or input devices etc.). > > And they use WINE to run android dev stuff on linux? My god - that > > beggars the imagination. > > I think he's talking about other applications. I think picasa uses wine. and google earth -- Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community