121–130 of 226 posts
What about Google? The issues fairphone mention are passing Google certification suites. They should be relaxed to help those cases. As far as I know the major issues are around GLES. It passed older CTS, so GLES was good enough back then. Surely it could be good enough now.
I don't blame Qualcomm one bit. Why would they want to support old hardware long after 99% of people aren't using it?
People aren't using it because it is no longer receiving updates. 2-3 year old hardware should not be considered "old", or obsolete.
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Didn't some Linux maintainers had very clear legal words for NVidia when they tried to make a kernel HAL/ABI?
NoyesNo, Nvidia tried to make a doggy legally questionable workaround for license aspects, so it's not quite the same. Also as far as I remember (I might be wrong) the google HAL isn't a abstraction/redirection in the low level kernel module layer it lives on a higher abstraction level and was meant to make the amount of ways braking less but never planed to add abstractions on top of which you could build a graphics…
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> have strangled Linux in its early years. And likely would still do so toady. I mean we are speaking about the kernel internal API (not the syscall API, which is stable). Even systems which pride themself for internal kernel API stability do change the API every view years, while often having much less internal (feature/platform support) changes then Linux . Furthermore in android Linux LTS versions are often used w…
Why? WDDM drivers written for Windows Vista can still work on Windows 10. And Windows is not a "niche" system.
Are the improvements worth the cost? I don't know. (For server applications likely yes, but for desktop likely not).
What I do know is that there are clear benefits of micro kernel architectures, even if they are kinda messed up (for a micro kernel) hybrids like windows has.
Lastly the way the kernel API's are designed can also make a major difference independent of the rest. Honestly the Linux kernel API feels much more raw then the windows API, but I only have every written a single dummy driver for each platform and that was quite a while ago.
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Why? WDDM drivers written for Windows Vista can still work on Windows 10. And Windows is not a "niche" system.
Because Windows is a (very broken) Micro-Kernel system which did very little changes to it's kernel (as far as I know) in the last many years, in difference to that Linux is a macro kernel with constant changes and improvements to it. Are the improvements worth the cost? I don't know. (For server applications likely yes, but for desktop likely not). What I do know is that there are clear benefits of micro kernel arch…
NT has been shifting towards running more driver-code in user-space, as has macOS as well, especially with UMDF (especially for USB devices) and for graphics drivers, which are historically the #1 cause of BSODs - however just because the kernel passes control to user-space for the bulk of the driver's number-crunching doesn't mean that architecturally the kernel is still responsible for huge swathes of the computer's functionality. With a true micro-kernel there isn't any third-party code in the kernel space - not even a stub.
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Are you implying the 'no stable binary ABI' policy is responsible for a lot of e-waste?
I mean, that seems to be the result, yes? The intent is to compel device manufacturers to release the source of their drivers, but at this point, I think we have to admit that's not a great description of what's happening in the mobile space.
The android ecosystem is already better than the completely proprietary feature phones of before.
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Why? WDDM drivers written for Windows Vista can still work on Windows 10. And Windows is not a "niche" system.
Because Windows is a (very broken) Micro-Kernel system which did very little changes to it's kernel (as far as I know) in the last many years, in difference to that Linux is a macro kernel with constant changes and improvements to it. Are the improvements worth the cost? I don't know. (For server applications likely yes, but for desktop likely not). What I do know is that there are clear benefits of micro kernel arch…
Let's not forget about massive stuff like the whole Windows Subsystem For Linux, which was literally an entire separate process type alongside Win32 processes, with its own set of syscalls etc. Added and then deprecated (and probably eventually removed entirely) over the span of years.
Maintaining a stable kernel ABI is no doubt a big investment, but it's possible and doesn't have much to do with whether your kernel is a microkernel or not. Lots of Windows drivers these days are user-space which helps maintain compatibility and stability.
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That's more or less what happens already.
It is but if the radio driver was open source then the interface with the radio SoC would be documented. Right now it is the worst of both worlds. Closed interface for a closed undocumented chip able to execute arbitrary code.
Qualcomm is only able to obstruct in this way because Linux doesn’t keep the kernel driver ABI stable for any fixed period of time. If Android used FreeBSD and Qualcomm shipped drivers for the latest build when the SoC was released, you’d have up to five years of support from that kernel release. Windows Phone 10 was actually in a position to support phones for years and even got Qualcomm onboard. It’s a shame the pl…
I’m going to reply to a few sibling comments at once: Yes, they could upstream drivers, but they won’t. It’s not in their best interest. I’m taking about what could be done in spite of this. Given that they won’t upstream drivers, if the blobs they release keep working for the reasonable life of your device, your phone can get other software updates, including major OS updates. I don’t expect or need the camera or ra…
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Android should have been GPL
The part of Android that talks to the Qualcom drivers is the Linux kernel, which is GPL already.