Marvell microkernel

[Alex Belits]

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 3:26 AM, Alex Belits
> <abelits at phobos.illtel.denver.co.us> wrote:
> 
>>  If Marvell can release "tangled source" for ARM code that depends on
>> proprietary microkernel, it would be an ordinary porting effort to make it
>> work without that microkernel.
> 
> Let go of that dream. Marvell is just giving excuses for
> why they won't release the rest of the code. The true
> reasons are not public, but likely: the code is a buggy
> piece of crap that Marvell sees as being valuable IP.

I don't know, I would expect this behavior from Broadcom but not 
Marvell. As for embarrassingly buggy pieces of crap, we already know 
that most of firmware is in this category, they are not going to 
surprise anyone. It also won't be the first situation when release of 
buggy source of the formerly closed "reference implementation" can lead 
to far superior open version.

> That dream has already cost us dearly, and I think it
> was intentional. People would have started work over
> a year ago had they known how dishonest Marvell
> would be.

If this is the case, can anyone determine, what exactly we can get from 
Marvell -- chip data sheets, any other documentation, etc.? If we can't 
get it from Marvell, it can be derived by reverse engineering, but it 
will be nice to find out what they can provide.

-- 
Alex