705
The Framework Laptop 13 is about to become one of the world’s first RISC-V laptops
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
705 points (98.6% liked)
Technology
59666 readers
3188 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I work with SoC suppliers, including Qualcomm and can confirm; you need to sign an NDA to get a highly patched old orphaned kernel, often with drivers that are provided only as precompiled binaries, preventing you updating the kernel yourself.
If you want that source code, you need to also pay a lot of money yearly to be a Qualcomm partner and even then you still might not have access to the sources for all the binaries you use. Even when you do get the sources, don't expect them to be updated for new kernel compatibility; you've gotta do that yourself.
Many other manufacturers do this as well, but few are as bad. The environment is getting better, but it seems to be a feature that many large manufacturers feel they can live without.
How's this possible with the kernel under gpl? If you're getting precompiled binaries, shouldn't you also be able to get their sources by law?
Kernel modules don't have to be open source provided they follow certain rules like not using gpl only symbols. This is the same reason you can use an NVIDIA driver.
Its not enforced so much by law as what the fsf and Linux foundation can prove and are willing to pursue; going after a company that size is expensive, especially when they're a Linux foundation partner. A lot of major Linux foundation partners are actively breaking the GPL.