On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 3:00 PM, maxime.ripard < [email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 06, 2014 at 12:43:50PM +0300, Simos Xenitellis wrote: > > Thanks all for the replies! > > > > I composed the document for Nicolas and I hope he manages to arrange for > a > > video interview. > > The two main aspects were that what Allwinner currently provides (to the > > developer communities) is not sufficient, > > and that what is needed is a direct contact from Allwinner to the > > linux-sunxi community > > in order to sort out issues as they develop. > > I'm a bit concerned about this to be honest. > > No other SoC vendor will give you that sort of thing for free. > And no other SoC vendor will either send dev boards to any random dude > on the internet. > > I don't think you could show up and just require that. > I think the bar has been set quite low so there should be little concern. That is, Nicolas will probably try to arrange for an interview to discuss about open-source development at Allwinner. He may try the style of his existing videos (camera on hand, visit offices and talk directly to employees) or take an interview with a spokesperson of Allwinner. He should describe the need to have upstream support for Allwinner SoCs, and the need to have some direct contact with Allwinner on open-source software development. He can use the argument: look, Rockchip has DT files in the Linux kernel, and there are none from Allwinner. Or, if you want to enter the server market, then it is quite important to have mainline Linux kernel support. The effort happening from linux-sunxi is for the benefit of Allwinner. On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Jean-Luc Aufranc <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm not sure if this is the kind of question you would consider, but I > once asked them a few questions about AllWinner and Linaro, and they > acknowledge my message, saying they will reply later. (That was about 6 > weeks ago...). Here's the list: > > * Why did AllWinner decide to join Linaro, and especially the Digital Home > Group? > In hindsight, I can understand why they did not answer yet. They may have not put substantial resources yet, so they are probably postponing until they have something that can be announced. On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 12:51 AM, Henrik Nordström < [email protected]> wrote: > ons 2014-08-06 klockan 08:27 -0400 skrev [email protected]: > > > I suspect they could eliminate 50% of their support burden by doing > > two things: > > 1) Full documentation in the manuals/datasheets > > 2) Put the SDKs up on a public server so that people can be sure they > > are using the most recent ones. > > Keep in mind that Allwinner are used to not having many outside > developers working on code for their chips. The SDK is produced by a > fairly small team of people, and their main target market is high wolume > tablets, where all is using their SDK and supported periperial devices > (touch screens etc), and even large part of the PCB designs are done by > a small group and then copied as-is by others. > > Going from that to full documented chip with a lot of code developed & > maintained outside is very very far and they will need a lot of help and > positive guidance on how to move forward. > > I think that this describes the situation, and we should take that into account when interacting with Allwinner. In addition, companies in China/Korea/Japan tend to be rigidly hierarchical, so you tend to need to persuade someone high in the ranks. Thus, if Nicolas gets to talk to Allwinner about these issues and, for example, to someone like that guy at http://armdevices.net/2014/07/18/allwinner-a80ts-solution-development-cycle/ then it would be a step forward. Demanding is not the right approach. Allwinner is not dependent on > linux-sunxi at all for the bulk of their market share. > The argument about the A80 being used in a server environment is quite strong and requires mainline Linux kernel support. In addition, Allwinner would probably want to grown in new markets, such as tablets with Firefox OS (Mozilla Foundation) or Ubuntu (Canonical). Both these would ideally require mainline Linux kernel support (and uboot, etc). There was a recent mail here about 500 A31 tablets running Firefox OS and having a exotic issue with OS/X. Still, the millions of the chipsets go to the Android devices as you say. Simos -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "linux-sunxi" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
