Task:Community firmware image distribution

As part of the community efforts to backport Fremantle components (Mer), there have been discussions on how the community can provide firmware images containing proprietary contents (nokia software, hardware firmware blobs, 3rd party?, etc.) and distribute these.

A proposal to deal with this problem could be to, allow/license/etc maemo.org, directed by the Maemo Community Council, elected by the Maemo Community, to do the following:

  • On their servers construct, based on build scripts provided by community developers, firmware images (FIASCO images, jffs images, etc.) containing the proprietary contents.
  • The resulting images will then be provided by the maemo.org servers.

The resulting firmware images would only be downloadable through providing a valid MAC address for a Nokia Internet Tablet product and agreeing to a license covering the user's use of the firmware image, just like tablets-dev.nokia.com.

The effect of this could be, through the maemo.org process, that the community could be able to remix the firmware images, backport Fremantle components without having to directly deal with licensing and could make it possible to provide alternative distributions for the tablets without them sacrificing hardware interfaces, etc.

[edit] First request: Distribution of initfs jffs2 (or other formats) image from maemo.org

Of the closed source content in the Diablo initfs, we would like to be able to distribute (from maemo.org) to N800, N810 and N810WE users an initfs image containing the following bits (paths relative to initfs) under a scheme similar to above:

Wi-Fi and connectivity related:

  • /lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1/umac.ko (Reason: Counterpart to cx3110x driver)
  • /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/3826.arm (Reason: Firmware for STLC45xx)
  • /usr/sbin/wlan-cal (Reason: providing calibration data to cx3110x)
  • /usr/bin/bt-cal (Reason: calibration of bluetooth chip)
  • From outside initfs, stlc45xx-cal-0.1.2 , found at http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/d2.php (Reason: binary only initfs utility for providing calibration data to the new open source driver stlc45xx)

Battery handling:

  • /usr/bin/bme_RX-34 (for proper handling of battery and charging)
  • /usr/bin/bme_RX-44 (as above)

RTC and alarm:

  • /usr/bin/retutime (for alarm setting, time handling, etc)

Device state management:

  • Any binaries and libraries that are needed to make DSME function and run (for basic functionality, backlight, wlan-cal, etc.)

Various:

  • /usr/bin/cal-tool (for access to R&D flags, etc for purposes of system development)

We would also like clarification of the licensing of /linuxrc.

[edit] See also

Retrieved from "http://bugs.maemo.org/Task:Community_firmware_image_distribution"