Hi Tomi,
Am 23.01.2018 um 14:48 schrieb Tomi Valkeinen tomi.valkeinen@ti.com:
Hi,
On 23/01/18 15:38, H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
In the end we should have a single, generic SGX driver for all OMAP SoC variants sitting in mainline drivers/gpu/pvr. So the goal is to end the era of out-of tree SGX drivers for a significant portion of OMAP processors.
I don't think that will ever happen, because there is no open source userspace library for SGX. That library is the "real" driver here.
Yes and no... It can be seen as application software for the SGX and consists of a microkernel and user-space libs to communicate with it. Both are unfortunately closed source but no kernel components and need no integration. Just data sent back and forth through open source drivers.
At least the policy has been (I believe it still is) that you can't have a driver in the kernel which can only be used with a closed source userspace component.
I see counter-examples, mainly in the WiFi area. There are drivers for Realtek, Marvell, TI WiFI chips and firmware is separate and required to make it useful.
Other examples may also exist.
A big question is if we want to wait forever until user-space becomes open of if we lay a foundation to make it easier to become open (reverse engineered open-source user-space for example).
BR, Nikolaus