Linux support concerns

[Andrew2]

A64 is irrelevant. Pine64 uses the A53 SoC. The entire BSP for A53, which is exactly what you were pointing to on the olinuxino github for the A64, is available for download from the pine64 wiki.

The datasheets are not part of the BSP but were taken from Olimex (maybe you know how a wiki works: there's a version history also: http://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=M...e&oldid=35). 

It looks like you've made many experiences with Allwinner in the past so you can rate the value of verbal promises made?

Then I wonder what you're talking about an A53 SOC? At least the Pine boards are based on the A64 (that comes with 4 Cortex-A53 cores)

[o9guy]

@tllim

Thanks so much for continuing to work with Allwinner to express our concerns. Please continue to be an advocate for all of us in the Pine64 and open source community. It is my sincerest desire to see this product flourish under open development so we can all benefit from it, even other boards!

[drag00n]

Thanks TL, please keep us up-to-date. This is the most important flaw for Linux backers...

drag00n

[paulieg]

It looks like you've made many experiences with Allwinner in the past so you can rate the value of verbal promises made?

I have stated a number of times that I haven't, not with Allwinner anyway. It's true that promises made < actual deliverables. However, it is also true that promises made > no promises made. No promises made and no deliverables was where we were before TL started engaging with Allwinner. He's gotten a commitment from them which doesn't mean anything until they deliver, but is better than nothing and indicates we have some momentum and a hope that things will improve. The Chinese value their reputation and a CEO would not likely want to lose face by committing and not delivering. That's what I hope anyway.

Then I wonder what you're talking about...

So do I, it's a mystery. Posting on no sleep and in a hurry will, from time to time, result in nonsense being posted. That's what happened with that part of my post.

-p

[tllim]

It looks like you've made many experiences with Allwinner in the past so you can rate the value of verbal promises made?

I have stated a number of times that I haven't, not with Allwinner anyway. It's true that promises made < actual deliverables. However, it is also true that promises made > no promises made. No promises made and no deliverables was where we were before TL started engaging with Allwinner. He's gotten a commitment from them which doesn't mean anything until they deliver, but is better than nothing and indicates we have some momentum and a hope that things will improve. The Chinese value their reputation and a CEO would not likely want to lose face by committing and not delivering. That's what I hope anyway.

Then I wonder what you're talking about...

So do I, it's a mystery. Posting on no sleep and in a hurry will, from time to time, result in nonsense being posted. That's what happened with that part of my post.

-p

Already meet up with Allwinner folks two days ago at CES and we have some interesting discussion. All the times, Allwinner mostly deal with factory who purchased their chip, factory built as product (like tablet) and sell to merchant, then merchant sell to end users. Even in SBC product, still mostly follow the above path, the only different is instead of "factory", it becomes the board maker. Such path very different than the "intel inside" path, where intel marketing interact a lot with end user.
You may puzzle why I mention about business path, this is important so that we can figure out why we didn't get support from Allwinner as chip vendor and how we get ask and request support from them mow and future. In pass and even now, Allwinner mind is their main interaction is to factory or board maker, NOT the end users (including developers). Who purchase more chip from them, who will get the most support. This is a direct and reasonable business path. Frankly speaking, most of the time when you purchase a tablet, you just know the brand (sometime you even don't know the brand if is a cheap tablet) and you may not look toward who is the factory and what chip using inside. Noted that you may knwo that CPU spec, like quad core A7, memory size, panel size and etc. Since there is a layer (actually more than a layer) between a tablet chip vendor and their end user. It seems this practice expand over to when some vendor using their chip to build single board computer.  This is why until now there is no single contact window that inside Allwinner that actually focus on dealing with open source community and I get this confirmation when chat with them. In order to change this, I need to bring this attention up to their president (CEO) which I already did few weeks ago. If dealing this issue at manager level (where the level that most board makers able to approach), it will not work due to not their common business and engineering support practice. Their president at least already acknowledge interest in open source community support and figure out a resource to implement this task. Since this already in motion, I will keep push toward into this direction and hopefully I can get finally get a dedicate support resource for open source community. hopefully I get provide a good news soon and understand that this is very important to the prosperity of Pine64 platform.
Please note that Allwinner aware the open source activity especially Sunxi, but didn't know "how to deal" or effort on this. From this point of view, this is board maker, such as CHIp or xxxPi, responsibility to deal to open source community.

[Andrew2]

In order to change this, I need to bring this attention up to their president (CEO)

Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I still wonder how you guys may be able to do anything towards or even represent the open source community since all your contacts to this 'open source thing' are as follows (if I'm not wrong!):

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topics...nxi/pine64

http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic...-computer/

Please share how Allwinner tries to contribute to the open source efforts around their products.

[Andrew2]

The Chinese value their reputation and a CEO would not likely want to lose face by committing and not delivering. That's what I hope anyway.

Well, I'm more concerned about another intercultural aspect. Quoting a company that produces real open source hardware and ordering the same amount of SoCs routinely compared to the Pine64 order:

as in Chinese culture is known that they never will directly say no, and will tell you what you want to hear

(https://olimex.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/...r-forever/)

What most people here forget: The Pine64 is not the first try to use an Allwinner SoC on a SBC: http://linux-sunxi.org/Category:Devices 

And there's also no need to trust vague statements about a shift in mind at Allwinner due to the Pine64 starting to ship in a few months in mass production. This thread about one of the many (L)GPL violations might give a better impression what to expect: http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/pipermail/arm-...10456.html

[nomadewolf]

I think tllim said it all.
Allwinner doesn't believe it's their job t 'deal' with the opensource community.
Not that it is their obligation or anything, but it seems they want to give us some sort of hope.
I would like a very clear declaration of their intentions on the following:
- OpenSource drivers
- OpenSource community cooperation
- Providing decent documentation about the hardware CPU and GPU
- Closed source support for Linux. Mainlining it or not?

And that's all.
Allwinner doesn't owe anything it hasn't promised. But vague indications is something we can not tolerate.
I think that clear answers on these topics would be a great step for this discussion and for helping those undecided if they will back this project or not.

[Andrew2]

Not that it is their obligation or anything, but it seems they want to give us some sort of hope.

Who are you referring to?

[nomadewolf]

Not that it is their obligation or anything, but it seems they want to give us some sort of hope.

Who are you referring to?

I'm referring to Allwinner, based on tllim's responses.