[Arm-netbook] Mali-400 driver status

[Vladimir Sedach]

We seem to have a misunderstanding. I think it's deeply unfortunate
the whole driver stack is not available under the GPL. I'm not
interested in using Linux, so having a pre-built Linux binary doesn't
help.

Thank you,
Vladimir

On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 7:34 PM, lkcl luke <luke.leighton at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 11:34 PM, Vladimir Sedach <vsedach at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've taken an interest in the allwinner a10
>> (http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/) due to their stance on being
>> Free Software friendly.
>
>  cool.
>
>> I know GPU drivers can be a big problem.
>
>  yes.  fortunately, most of these qualify as "system libraries" and
> are thus exempt under the GPL.
>
>
>> Allwinner specs the Mali-400, and what I've been able to find is this
>> page: http://www.malideveloper.com/developer-resources/drivers/open-source-mali-gpus-linux-kernel-device-drivers.php
>>
>> "Note that these components are not a complete driver stack. To build
>> a functional OpenGL ES or OpenVG driver you need access to the full
>> source code of the Mali DDK, which is provided under the standard ARM
>> commercial licence to all Mali GPU customers."
>
>  deep joy.
>
>  ok... wait... it says to _build_ a functional driver.
>
>  however, that's already been done.
>
>> Does anyone have experience with these drivers? Are the kernel modules
>> just "GPL shims" with most of the work being done in the userspace
>> part of the driver?
>
>  yyyep, that's correct.  they merely provide access to a shared memory
> area.  ok, that's probably a drastic oversimplification :)
>
> l.
>
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