[Arm-netbook] Olimex is making an "open-source" laptop...

[Paul Boddie]

On Tuesday 7. February 2017 15.01.51 Stefan Monnier wrote:
> 
> Not only that: if the machine doesn't run a vanilla Linux kernel,
> there's a terribly good chance that 3 years down the road, you'll still
> be stuck with the same outdated kernel.

Right. Even when vendors actually release the corresponding source code and 
don't drop in binary blobs, due to the phenomenon I call "the Linux 
speedboat", if they've forked an old kernel and done things their way, and if 
someone doesn't get on the case immediately, there's the unenviable task of 
forward-porting that code to whatever it is that the Linux kernel developers 
happen to like today. If the vendor didn't manage to throw their code aboard 
the speedboat at the right time, everyone is left floating in the wake.

An example of this that Luke mentioned before was the Skytone Alpha netbook 
which has an Ingenic SoC that just happens to be the one that there really is 
no documentation for, although assumptions can be made that it is similar to 
others that are documented publicly. You can get the sense of how things are 
by going through the sources for the shipped *2.6* kernel derivative, but it's 
an exercise in itself to figure out how all that should be redone for today's 
kernels.

Maybe such forward-porting is not too hard: I actually had a go, not being a 
kernel hacker, but I didn't sense any genuine interest from anyone who might 
be better equipped to help such work along. Shinier things take precedence 
over sustainability and longevity for such people, I guess. Add in weird 
bootloader and kernel init tricks and you have to be fond of kernel hacking to 
be bothered. Plus, I don't really see Linux-the-kernel as the future, anyway.

Paul