How free is the OpenPandora?


mattl

mattl

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Hey,


I'm an editor at Defective by Design and we've been asked to include the OpenPandora in our list of devices we can recommend to people.


We have some pretty strict guidelines for hardware, making it by far the hardest thing for us to evaluate.


Can someone give me a rundown of any proprietary software included with the device as standard, including binary kernel modules, binary drivers or firmware that is loaded at runtime, as well as applications or plugins such as Skype, Flash, etc.


If such proprietary software is included, as it is with many devices, please let me know if such software is essential to the use of the device or just something which is required for a particular task, such as Wifi or 3D graphics accelleration.


Thanks,


matt
 
Afaik, WiFi and accelerated GPU drivers are the only non-free blobs included. Non-free codecs etc. are not distributed with the stock firmware. It has a Open Source boot loader that allows booting other linux distributions, so it's possible to make it run a system without these blobs. The Wifi-blob can be avoided with one of those cheap tiny USB WiFi-sticks from DX.


Firmware-devs will have to confirm this though.
 
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Neither the wifi nor nub drivers are proprietary. The firmware on the nubs and the wifi chip themselves, however, are proprietary. There's actually no (simple) way to change the firmware on the nubs, though I believe MWeston does have the code and could rebuild it for future Pandoras if he had to. Yes, the nubs have firmware. The driver for the nubs was never proprietary either, it's just custom, and the driver for the wifi which was originally closed source was upgraded to an open source one about a year ago (I could be wrong about the time frame).


The only binary blob in the kernel that I'm aware of is for the GPU.


So to summarize, non-open components that I'm aware of: GPU driver, the firmware running on the nubs (but the IO is documented and the actual communication driver is open), and the firmware running the wifi (same deal as the nubs).
 
Wifi (firmware)/SGX GPU/DSP modules are binary drivers (all provided by TI). The pandora can still function without any of these as the FB driver DSS2 is open sourced.


The nubs do run a closed firmware, but this is within the device itself.
 
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The nubs have their own firmware in an ATMEL, yep, but the software driver is included in the OS Sourcecode, so they are perfectly usable.


WiFi firmware is a binary blob, but the driver is open, so if you compile your own OS, you can copy the binary blob into the directory and WiFi will work fine.


So it's half-free. You can't change the firmware of the WiFi chip, but it won't stop you from using it in any OS, as the firmware is just code that's being loaded into the WiFi module by the driver.


The only really restricting proprietary driver is the 3D driver. There are different versions available for different kernels, but the driver itself is not free and cannot be recompiled. Therefore, no 3D if you're trying to do a non-Linux-based OS.


It's nigh impossible to get an SoC with an open 3D driver, sadly.


The Samsung Mali one is the only one with an open driver as well (made by the community).


This won't stop you from fully using the OS.


You could create a fully working OS (whatever you want) except for 3D accelleration.
 
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EvilDragon said:
The only really restricting proprietary driver is the 3D driver. There are different versions available for different kernels, but the driver itself is not free and cannot be recompiled. Therefore, no 3D if you're trying to do a non-Linux-based OS.
Click to expand...
It's worth noting 3D kernel portion is open, all proprietary closed code is in userspace libraries.
 
Fair point, and information I haven't seen, but I think this is quite far from saying that there are open source drivers, ie supporting OpenGL ES 2+, out right now.
 
Exophase said:
Fair point, and information I haven't seen, but I think this is quite far from saying that there are open source drivers, ie supporting OpenGL ES 2+, out right now.
Click to expand...

Yeah but the fact they are drawing triangles while targeting GLES2, basically makes it a matter of time.
 
A bit of an eye opener, and a reminder of how much I enjoy reading things from this community.
 
I wonder if the topic starter drives an open source car? Or uses an open source microwave?


This is ridiculous.


I don't see you on your refrigerator manufactures website asking these questions.
 
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Well, if someone wants to index things these things, they have to be thorough. This is a website that wants to recommend your device, it's not one of those ludicrous attack threads.


[edit] Of course, I would expect similar scrutiny if a fridge was called OpenWestinghouse. And if my childhood taught me anything, it was that open fridges needed to be f****n' closed, or arses got kicked.
 
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The fact is the Pandora will fail his test, it will fail on a serious of ludicrous technicalities.


I'm just curious how the creator might live his life, and if he could, if all his technology would be open, or if he draws the line somewhere?


I mean Christ, I'd bet my electricity meter has closed source firmware in it, would he put up with that?
 
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