Marvell

[Dan Williams]

On Mon, 2007-09-10 at 10:31 -0700, Edward Cherlin wrote:
> As I understand it, the microkernel for the Marvell wireless chipset
> is the only remaining proprietary software on the Laptop, and although
> we want to get rid of it, nothing is happening. 
> http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/46
> Is that correct?
> 
> Richard Stallman told me on Saturday that this is the only impediment
> to him recommending the XO. Whatever your personal opinions about RMS
> might be, he can be a valuable ally, and the price for his support is
> quite modest, since we want to do this anyway. 
> 
> Several people have commented on the bug page that they want to work
> on this piece of the problem, but nobody seems to have organized it.
> I'm willing to be the focus of the effort. We need the Marvell
> documentation, and the location of the code OLPC has written on top of
> the microkernel. (Both easy enough, I assume.) Then we need a bit of
> advice on what to use. TinyOS has been suggested. 
> 
> But first we need some commitment. Who would like to work on it? Who
> would be willing to advise?

Somebody needs to take ownership of the issue and run with it.  There's
no bandwidth right now to do that at OLPC.

You might also note to RMS that the EC code is also not open, and of
course neither of these two issues is any different than a generic
laptop you buy off the street.  If RMS can't recommend the XO to anyone,
then he _certainly_ can't recommend a normal Thinkpad, Dell, HP, etc to
anyone either, because they also contain proprietary, non OSS code in
their ECs and other parts.  I believe people are somewhat farther
looking into open EC code than wireless firmware bits though.

And it's not just the runtime firmware.  Would RMS refuse to recommend
the XO because the boot2 firmware that's burned into SPI flash on the
wireless module (like our current firmware and EC firmware is) is not
open even if the runtime wireless firmware was open?

Dan

> -- 
> Edward Cherlin
> Earth Treasury: End Poverty at a Profit
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Earth_Treasury
> WIRE AFRICA  http//www.wireafrica.org/
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/cherlin 
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