Most, if not all, public SD docs were illegaly leaked. Any software based on them is a legal liability and should probably be avoided.
That said, the chances that any lawsuits will be filed are approximately zero.
I'm not trying to correct GPH's business strategy. I'm just criticizing them...
Bingo, we have a winner. I suspect the reason they are dragging their feet is their license with the secure digital memory standards people. I bet that the SD support is directly in the kernel instead of in a module so they can't release their full kernel source without violating their SD IP...
One option is to push to get the full source tree from GPH and then completely forget about them. If everybody starts using the Open2X firmware, it will become the established standard.
So far GPH hasn't fully embraced the F/OSS business model by not providing a CVS server and a person/people to submit patches to.
If they were to make this move, then the community effort to build better firmware that is currently in orbit around Open2X could shift to focusing on the official...
Hrm. I've been involved with and contributed to the Linux kernel source since 1995. I'm not new to F/OSS at all. I've also made many contributions the F/OSS community, including organizing several projects.
From past experience and evidence from other commercial Linux-based products, I would...
Even if we do get the source code from GPH (ne DiginSys or whoever), we're still going to be fighting an uphill battle to get any fixes into the "official" firmware. I know that many of you out there don't, and won't, care about the official firmware once you can compile your own, but I think...
I just posted it to Digg.com in the Linux/Unix category under the title: "Linux-based Portable Gaming Device Manufacturers Not Following GPL". Jump on over and digg the story by going into the "Digg for stories" section so that it gets promoted to the front page.
Just like Linux maintaining the main branch of the Linux kernel. Linus uses other developers who have expertise in areas of the Linux kernel source to sort through all of the submitted patches to find the ones that fit into the direction Linus wants to take the kernel. It's a distributed...
There are very simple ways to engineer a system so that it is "unbrickable". Being able to boot from the SD is the most obvious one that comes to mind. You could also leverage uboot's ability to have side-by-side images of two kernels, the old one and the new one. Using a key combo you can...
GPH wouldn't slow down if they adopted the same management structure that Linus uses for the Linux kernel source code. Active developers like r1yeh, squidge, and rob could vet the patches and find the ones that should get into the next release, clean them up and apply them to the main branch...
This would be nice if we were allowed to submit patches to the official GPH firmware source code. I'll be hacking away at the drivers to get USB host mode going out the EXT port and trying to get it into the official firmware. But until that happens, using USB is just not an option when it is...
I'm hoping that GPH will see what Apple did, or better yet what IBM did, and emulate them.
The problem with the Open2X codebase is that it will become better at some point and there will be significant pressure to start using the Open2X firmware instead of the official GPH firmware. What...