Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1

Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by joeyo on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @05:50PM (#2117759)

  > Samsung won't release their kernel modifications for
  > Froyo which are needed by the CM team to get CM7 running
  > on the Galaxy S devices

Isn't this a violation of the GPL?

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by metachris on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @10:32PM (#2118457)

Just developing GPL software for a certain part of an embedded system doesn't necessarily require all other hardware parts to be GPL'ed as well, just as your BIOS being proprietary doesn't violate the GPL if you're running Linux.

Would be great to see a fully open-source phone some day. I believe OpenMoko was striving for this goal, too.

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by wmf on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @06:43PM (#2117913)

Not if it's a driver.

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by krakensden on Wednesday January 19, 2011 @12:04AM (#2118705)

You mean, not if it's a driver with a GPL-compatible shim (a la nVidia).

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by joeyo on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @08:23PM (#2118165)

Good point.

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by drivebyacct2 on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @07:32PM (#2118053)

Part of the problem is that they haven't shipped Froyo officially. But yes, manufacturers, even HTC, have been up to 6 months late delivering code as required via GPL.

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by wmf on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @11:26PM (#2118605)

If Samsung release full source to their Eclair port, the community would be happy to forward-port the drivers to Froyo. But without source they can't.

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by drivebyacct2 on Wednesday January 19, 2011 @01:31AM (#2118921)

Are we missing even Eclair source? I know Froyo and GB have changed things enough with some of the drivers that forward porting has been harder than expected... but if Eclair's source is missing, it seems the proper response is some sort of campaign to get Samsung in gear. I do think that HTC responded to GPL complaints when they had held out so long on releasing their kernel mods.

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Re:Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones run Android 2.1 by wmf on Wednesday January 19, 2011 @02:48PM (#2120989)

As I said elsewhere in the thread, vendors don't have to release source for drivers (kernel modules); AFAIK every Android phone uses proprietary GPU drivers at least. So even if a vendor released all the source that they're required to release, that may not be enough to create a custom ROM with a future version of Android.

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