Amlogic AML8726-MX Linux kernel code released
Xin He from Amlogic informed me that the linux kernel source code for their AML8726-MX SoC has been released:
Hi Antonio,
Amlogic just posted MX kernel source code (branch ics-mx-develop) on openlinux.
Here is the link:
http://openlinux.amlogic.com/download/linux/GPL_code_release/2012-08-03/kernel-common-2012-08-03-git-a63244fb9c.tar.gz
AML8726-MX (code named MESON6) is the base of a lot of Android tablets from Chinese system integrators/distributors, like the ones from Ainol for instance; I was even considering getting one of them myself and try to get Debian running on it, but I haven't made up my mind yet.
A tarball is not the ideal medium to release kernel code, a public git repository would have been the best way to do it, but it is more than enough for Amlogic to comply to the GPL; the code seems to be based on the Android common kernel code in particular on the andoid-3.0 branch, with some other fixes from different linux-stable releases on top.
The complete archive from Amlogic is about 107 MiB, I took some time to isolate the Amlogic changes and here is a compressed patch (4 MiB, about 40 MiB uncompressed) if you want to take a look. The patch contains also code from other Amlogic platforms, it applies cleanly on top of the android-3.0 branch of the Android common Kernel code, and “almost cleanly” on top of the v3.0.31 branch of the linux-stable tree.
The released code is the one Amlogic uses on their own products and the one provided to system integrators using Amlogic products, however Amlogic confirmed that it is not unusual for system integrators to make changes to the code themselves, like adding new device drivers; so if you have a final product with AM8726-MX on board which is not directly from Amlogic you may still want to contact the manufacturer to get the source code correspondent to the GPL binaries shipped on the device.
This story made me think about companies basing their code on top of android kernels instead of mainline linux, is this something that other companies are doing as well?
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Comments
Hi, its great news that
Hi, its great news that AMlogic released their COMMON source code, unfortunately theirs no device specific code in there (take the mentioned Ainol) there's nothing relating to the lcd/ips drivers, so as such its a great start but unless these Chinese OEMs actually comply with the GPL and release their patches its a big uphill battle.
We're starting to look at the kernel for the ainol elfII and Auroura II here if you want to get involved, The more the merrier :D
http://www.slatedroid.com/topic/37031-openlinux-amlogic
Ps
I also pushed to github,
https://github.com/fards/AMlogic_Meson6_030812release
Hi fards, I haven't got any
Hi fards,
I haven't got any device from Ainol, so I am not spending too much time on the technical side of this story. I wanted to help with the GPL compliance part, so I sent an email to Amlogic and Ainol some time ago to ask them to release their GPL code, and Amlogic did.
With regard to the changes made by Ainol, we can keep talking about it on their official forum, I saw you posted there, and now I did so too:
http://ainolstore.com/forums/topic/39-source-code/page__st__10#entry1499
Code they released is not
Code they released is not complete. Some files missing here, some compile errors there... mali driver does not compile at all. Well, I'm not satisfied with AMLogic code quality at all - they do not use common frameworks and they're just inventing a wheel, that looks pretty weird to me.
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