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The update is an all-or-nothing type of deal though. You either update the entire system or you don't. So now people with a third-party screen don't get new fea
by axoltl 9y ago
The update is an all-or-nothing type of deal though. You either update the entire system or you don't. So now people with a third-party screen don't get new features and - more importantly - they don't get security fixes.
If the update wasn't all-or-nothing, now you have to test interoperability between this generic driver and the rest of the system. That might be OK if it was just this one driver, but what if you suddenly have a generic driver for N subsystems? The combinatorics explode quite quickly.
- ASalazarMX 9y agoEven if it's all-or-nothing and no generic drivers are implemented, it's better to deny new features than to cripple a working device. Apple defines the third-party market with how much documentation it releases. This is not a technical or practical problem, it's Apple not easing its iron grip, as it always does.
- axoltl 9y agoWould you mind pointing me to the implementation spec for the Pixel 2's touchscreen controller?
- ASalazarMX 9y agoSure, Download the source from https://source.android.com/setup/build/downloading https://source.android.com/setup/build/downloading. The driver is in kernel/drivers/input/touchscreen. Unless the Pixel 2's touchscreen is so weird that it needs a new driver, this will work for everyone.
- axoltl 9y agoI looked at it, but that doesn't actually tell me the touchscreen interface. It just tells me the bits they're currently using. If Apple had open sourced their driver it wouldn't have made a difference, as whatever they're doing differently wouldn't have been in it until now. In order for me to make a fully compatible touchscreen, I need the datasheet and programming manual for the touchscreen controller. As much as open source is a thing for software, it is not for hardware and especially silicon.
- ASalazarMX 9y ago> I looked at it, but that doesn't actually tell me the touchscreen interface. It just tells me the bits they're currently using. I have to agree with you on this. This is not a full hardware specification, it just tells how the hardware should behave up until the driver was released. Modern open source hardware is still far in the future.
- axoltl 9y agoOpen source hardware's still far in the future, and I'm actively worried about open silicon. The RISC-V foundation is making steps in the right direction, but it'll be a long time coming before I have a document that isn't under several layers of NDA telling me how to configure the memory controller on the latest Snapdragon.