[Arm-netbook] "smarter" phone

[Vladimir Pantelic]

luke.leighton wrote:
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:59 AM, Zsolt Sztupak <mail at sztupy.hu> wrote:
>>
>> On 28 May 2013, at 11:51, Neal Peacock <neal at nic-stix.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Vladimir Pantelic <vladoman at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Philip Hands wrote:
>>>>> "luke.leighton" <luke.leighton at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.c2mtl.com/eye50/ideas/smarter-phone/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> wooow.  i love it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nice.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not _very_ related, but another phone that someone mentioned on
>>>> Planet
>>>>> Debian recently, that might pique interest here:
>>>>>
>>>>>   http://www.fairphone.com/
>>>>>
>>>>> in particular their attempts to find manufacturer's that don't rub
>>>> their
>>>>> ethics up the wrong way.
>>>>
>>>> given the very closed and protective nature of MTK, I fail to see how
>>>> a phone using their SoC can be "fair"...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> The MTK kernel source is out finally.  Alcatel has released it for processors up to even the recent quad core.
>
>   good for them!  wow.  i'm impressed.  alcatel was the source of GPL
> compliance for previous kernel sources for mediatek processors as
> well.

I (at work) have released kernel source to a couple of Chinese SoCs 
and if we ever make a product using MTK, I will do so too... But as 
said, that has nothing to do with how "open" or "fair" a certain SoC 
vendor is.

as for the fairphone, I am sure it would be way easier to audit a 
Western SoC manufacturer for the fairness of the whole production 
process than MTK et al.

>> Still kinda useless (if you want to modify Android) without the Android platform code that was changed.
>
>   android is under the apache2 license.  there is absolutely no reason
> in hell why they should release the code.  there is absolutely no
> legal obligation for them to release the code.
>
>   now you know why the apache2 license is such a fucking bad idea.

since we do not have a competing "full" GPL based phone OS with the 
same widespread use, it might be a fucking bad idea, but a fucking 
successful too - and so far the fucking only one.