MTK6859's kernel has gone opensource


xiongxioi

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Sony has released MediaTek's soc MTK 6859's OSS buildable package. Even though it only contains the kernel source, and does not include the framework, it's better than nothing. I know nothing about this, so I will not make any additional comment. I hope some knowledgable saints would wake up from their slumber and educate us about what these are, and if that would be any beneficial for us. (mentioning no names, especially exophase, notaz, bsp, cough, cough)

http://developer.sonymobile.com/downloads/xperia-open-source-archives/open-source-archive-for-build-16-0-a-0-36/

PS: my prediction was right, MediaTek has made up its mind to get its share of pie in the somewhat highend mobile market, and it's willing to become more open. Anyone want to give me a cookie? :rolleyes:

Edit, it seems that many have yet to realize how important this bit of information is.

MTK is basically one of the best android soc providers out there, and ED has shown great interest to that.

The only drawn back with MTK is that, they never provide their sourcecode.

It may come into fruitation sooner than most people would anticipate. Imagine a MTK 6859T (4 core 1.5ghz soc) based console (with nice buttons similar to K101's), with great android support and come with a keyboard embedded carrying case and it can take sim cards. It's basically Much i5 on steroid. With better camera, better screen, basically better everything. (not as good android UI maybe)

That would be pretty awesome. What if that console would have linux support from us, and ED would be the one selling those? It costs much less but could do more than pandora, and it can be made for as many units a bunch as you like. Sure, it doesn't have as good audio quality, and someof pandora's apps would not be competible with it. But, it could attract a wider range of consumer, and potentially make our community bigger.

ED has this thing in mind for quite some time, but he was frustrated by the lack of linux support. (there are alternatives with linux support, but they would cost a lot more and be much less stable) I wonder will we accept this as one of the next pandora in line, or will we call it a bastardized abomination that should be killed with extreme fire fueled by the blood of the forever condemned?

If ED would be selling those and use some of that profit to port linux onto that, how much are we willing to pay? (units are cheap, but development is extremely expensive, and the company behind it only has hardware engineers so they can't be relied on) Obviously, the more profitable it is, the better it will be, and more money would be put towards funding those Pre-orders.

A few problems I can foresee are:

1. The Chinese are short on funds, they need much more capital to put a real keyboard onto their products rather than a leather case with keyboard attached on.

2. We won't have hardware uniqueness anymore, because MTK6859 is quite a consumer product, by that time everyone and their dog would have it.

3. Porting our system onto mtk would be quite tricky, even though some peole has already did a quick hack to get access into that charging linux the soc has. That linux is pretty bareboned, and nobody knows how much tweaking and even rewrite would be necessary.

4. We can not rely on those lads/girls to do any of the software or os related works. Even paying them will not be any good; they don't have the most basic low level programmers and technicians. (what do you expect?) So, ED would have to hire his own people, this may add into the development cost by quite a notch.

5. ED should not give them full trust: ie give them everything they need to flash linux on their systems and thus get bite in the behind when they decide to betray him. However, flashing our own systems is quite time consuming, and it's rather wasteful.
 
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It was already clear that they'll have to release kernel source due to GPL like any other SoC vendor, nothing new here..
 
It was already clear that they'll have to release kernel source due to GPL like any other SoC vendor, nothing new here..
It's a known fact that MediaTek uses linux for charging, however, their release of the kernel source makes me wonder just how much power does GPL have.

Were there any lawsuits against companies/individuals who refuse to act under GPL? If so, why are there so many psp knock-offs using your picodrive without giving out the source?

Even bigger products such as Neogeo X is in direct violation to GPL: it uses a badly ported dingux + FBA.
 
Were there any lawsuits against companies/individuals who refuse to act under GPL?
There have been several lawsuits against companies, even a very large one around busybox against 14 companies (including Best Buy, JVC, Samsung, Western Digital and Zyxel) which in the end resulted in the approach to create the GPL-free busybox alternative toybox (BSD license), which was initiated by a Sony employee. There are even projects like gpl-violations.org that try to help out developers that don't have enough ressources to defend their GPL-licensed work.
If so, why are there so many psp knock-offs using your picodrive without giving out the source?
The GPL does not force you to publish the code, it only forces you to give the owner of the binary (i.e. it can be sold without problems) the code if he explicitly asks for it. Most people simply make use of the fact that many people have no idea how to build it themselves and that you don't have to give your code to people who didn't bought it because they don't have the affected binaries.
 
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Ok, so they are now less bad. Whats good about them in the first place?
MTK is by no means bad; it is quite the opposite.

Their android phones can turn on within seconds, and have excellent performance/power ratio. They are very stable and felt smooth. Last time I checked, there are quite a few MTK6859 smart phones floating around on Ebay, Craigix has sold a few, and he liked them. (of cause, he's not to be 100% trusted.)

Much i5 (a MTK6859 ps vita wanna be) has a near 10 hour battery life.  

MTK is less known in the west only because they never supply their chips to big companies such as sony or google. However, that's changing as it has got into a relationship with sony. Hence the realsed kernel sourcecode on sony's site.

MTK was the first ARM soc supplier that had implemented a 28nm production line. MTK6859 has a built-in linux used only for charging, which is a rarity. It shows how much thought has been put into it.

If we have to talk about MediaTek's bad points, it does have a few, such as it used to have no support for linux this is changed now, it used to only make those Cortex A7 socs this has also changed as they have announced their cortex a15 "true octo soc".

If we want battery time as well as good android support right out of the box without much tweaking, there's no reason to choose anything other than MediaTek. Of cause, if all we care are max performance, or backwards competibility we should maybe use tegra 4 or omap5. 

To me, the #1 reason to use MTK is its readily availableness. We can literally ask any Chinese factories to produce these for us and slip linux in. This way, we can cut our production cost by a lot as well as lowering the development cost. We can sell those as "Pandora 1.5" at a lower price to appeal a larger consumer base. (they can be used as phones, and they have a really nice camera) Then when we get P2 out, we will have suitable products for everyone. I knew a few Chinese manufacturers that are quite reliable. After setting up connections, and broadening our consumer base, we can potentially change pandora into a money making wonder.  

It was already clear that they'll have to release kernel source due to GPL like any other SoC vendor, nothing new here..
Notaz, the real questions I want to ask you are:

If we can get our hands on these things, how hard would it be to port pandora's linux onto that? How much kick will we get from a Quad core 1.5 ghz cpu with a powerful gpu if we manage to port our linux to that? Even in android, that thing runs Drastic and ppsspp nicely, so maybe we can consider something even better like dreamcast or a newer mame.

Do you think this is an economical decision when taken all the potential risks into consideration? Do we have to put more funds into it to polish it futher (full keyboard and such) to remain pandora's product definition?
 
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If we have to talk about MediaTek's bad points, it does have a few, such as it used to have no support for linux this is changed now, it used to only make those Cortex A7 socs this has also changed as they have announced their cortex a15 "true octo soc".
I doubt that.


The reason they didn't want to sell me their SoC is because they don't want to work on and offer Linux drivers, only Android drivers.


That was their statement 1,5 months ago.

To me, the #1 reason to use MTK is its readily availableness. We can literally ask any Chinese factories to produce these for us and slip linux in. This way, we can cut our production cost by a lot as well as lowering the development cost. We can sell those as "Pandora 1.5" at a lower price to appeal a larger consumer base. (they can be used as phones, and they have a really nice camera) Then when we get P2 out, we will have suitable products for everyone. I knew a few Chinese manufacturers that are quite reliable. After setting up connections, and broadening our consumer base, we can potentially change pandora into a money making wonder.

Um, no, we can't.


MediaTek starts talking to you if you order 100k+ SoCs, so we can't get the SoCs directly.


And Chinese contractors build generic devices (like tables with gaming controls, like those that are flooding in from China right now, or stuff like PS-Vita Lookalikes).


They usually don't do custom designs, especially not in such low numbers.


So that would be an option if I had about 5 Million USD lying around and could order 20k right away with a MOQ of 100k per year.
 
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Good to see your reply, ED.

I'm aware of MTK's unwillingness to give out sources, maybe we can try to get some sort of quick hack on this specific SoC.

As for custom design, we may not able to hand everything to the Chinese and just wait for our bank checks.

However, they are cheap, and they can do a lot. People would be interested in picking up one even if they are not pandora fans.

There's a long way 'till we are ready to get P2 out, this is a relatively small investment and can get some cash flow going. As long as the product is of good quality and customers get what they paid for, peole should not complain. That thing is a better bang for your buck than GCW zero.

Picking MTK for P2 is likely to be a stupid idea (Something Craigix would do) as there won't be any further improvement down the line, but how about making that pandora lite, close pandora, dragonfingernail and sell them as some sort of android conterpart for pandora?

That 10k MOQ is the quota for large companies, small fries would be satisfied more easily. Asking them to do custom design is like asking a butcher to make sausages. Surely we can have some arrangement. yes, it's hard to get custom parts from the Chinese, but that's not impossible. Pandora's case was once produced in China, we paid a lot more for those. 
 
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I thought that your were advocating it's use? At least that's how your first post sounds.
Not in P2. I think we are still very very far away from even doing any meaningful conceptualization of P2. Pandora was a huge leap from its time, right now, ARM SoCs are not that different and better from the cortex A8. We are not like apple who's going to make a new model of iphone and ipad every 3 millisecond. We need a product that can last.

This post was made to ask ED and every other person about their attitude on the next pandora product. We can have something that's not very dated and cheap to produce to keep us in the loop before we are ready to invest all of us into P2.

Pandora 1ghz is great, but having something else may not be bad either. I'm afraid of spreading us too thin, but that's up to ED.
 
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There won't be anything between a Pandora and a successor, as it just wouldn't make sense.
 
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