[Arm-netbook] CT-PC89E - conversation with adam 02mar2010

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

ok just had a long skype call with adam, he's still in kathmandu
(helloo!) and just caught up / emphasised things, he also told me some
of the email's he's had from chitech.  basically they had (one of) the
sales girl(s) quit over new year, so there was a week where they
didn't respond, when normally they would have.  adam's now dealing
with the new girl, and she gets answers direct from the engineers.

reading between the lines of the replies, it dooes look like the
factory has the linux kernel source code, and u-boot, and MOS,
presumably licensed from / supplied by mid-fun.  i've heard of a
company that wants ubuntu netbook edition, so i've emphasised that we
need the linux kernel source code.  i've mentioned the bugs found so
far, which emphasise that we need the linux kernel source code.
basically i've primed adam with a ton of reasons why they should
cooperate with us and give us the linux kernel source code, including
that we'll help get it into mainline etc. etc.

next will be u-boot, and after that, i'll be intrigued to see if
they're happy to comply with the GPL portions of the MID-FUN MOS
operating system: it just depends on whether they've had it explained
to them, by mid-fun, what the deal is on free software licenses.

adam also explained that they replied about the S5PC100 SO-DIMM idea:
they said that a) they'd want a down-payment to do the work because
they get a lot of people messing them about b) they are a bit...
scared shall we say about doing the linux kernel for it.  so i've
explained to adam to say that yes, we have the expertise to take care
of the linux kernel side IF they can get us the code for the S3C6410
kernel, it's easy to morph, and secondly i said that if they give us
the pin-outs / schematics of the SO-DIMM i'll try to find a hardware
engineer to do a replacement SO-DIMM: it could even be done as a free
software project, because the schematics for the S5PC100 are available
free:
http://lkcl.net/odroid_schematics_rev03.pdf

... and as if by magic, someone just called me and it turns out that
they trained as a hardware design engineer ha ha

... it's aalll gooood :)

l.