Database Info

Video Driver: Stupid Obvious Question

So, having caught up on my reading about the Kaiser using standard software video drivers instead of hardware I have to ask what to me is an obvious question:
Why can one of our chefs not "acquire" the drivers from a WM6 device with the same chip and bake them into a Kaiser ROM?
Incidentally does the chip vendor have any reference drivers?
Or am I missing something here?
James

No reference drivers are available.
Attempts have been made at making drivers from another device using the same chip work on our HTC products, so far it got us nothing.
We won't see a new HTC device using the same chipset again so "porting" drivers from a newer HTC product is also out of the question.
So.....
Either HTC coughs up the drivers.
Someone with a lot of spare time and intimare knowledge "rips" the drivers from another device such as the LG KS20.
Someone with even more time and knowledge writes new drivers (not very likely to say the least).

undac said:
Someone with a lot of spare time and intimare knowledge "rips" the drivers from another device such as the LG KS20.
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Click to collapse
Chainfire already tried this if anybody bothers to read through the OpenGL ES thread, especially, the new people near the end of the thread.
Nobody has tried to cook a rom of it though that I know of, and cooking means all of the linked driver files, not this one file people are passing around like a pot hit.
However, I think Chainfire was pretty thorough and it's not likely cooking would be any more successful.

a KS20 ROM can be ported to Kaiser? (i mean, all generic and hardware drivers) and then make an Hybrid with another kaiser WM6 or WM6.1 rom? it could work..

NuShrike said:
Chainfire already tried this if anybody bothers to read through the OpenGL ES thread, especially, the new people near the end of the thread.
Nobody has tried to cook a rom of it though that I know of, and cooking means all of the linked driver files, not this one file people are passing around like a pot hit.
However, I think Chainfire was pretty thorough and it's not likely cooking would be any more successful.
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Click to collapse
From what I can remember Chainfire did try to cook it (he was refering to constant reflashing in the other thread).
And all due respect to Chainfire but I'm sure he's not the only person in the world who could potentially pull this off.
From my point of view he just proved that it certainly isn't going to be easy, not that it is impossible.

undac said:
From what I can remember Chainfire did try to cook it (he was refering to constant reflashing in the other thread).
And all due respect to Chainfire but I'm sure he's not the only person in the world who could potentially pull this off.
From my point of view he just proved that it certainly isn't going to be easy, not that it is impossible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed I did do multiple attempts of cooking, with uncountable different versions, hacks, etc. You don't even want to know all the things I've done to get it to work. In the end it was all fruitless and I decided I had spent enough precious time on it without satisfactory results. I don't believe it is impossible at all (just nasty) and there are probably a sizable number of people, some here on XDA, even who could possibly do it, given enough time and access to relevant devices. I am neither a noob nor a novice in these matters, but I will happily admit that this is beyond me and will remain so unless I spend a couple hundred more hours ont it (which I won't - sure I have many more ideas how to fix the remaining issues, but I have a company to run and don't think it's worth it).
Furthermore, another reason I stopped trying to do it is because the KS20 drivers have their own issues, so even if it did work, it's still is not a fix-all solution, which eventually makes the whole thing not worth investing hundreds of hours. Not to say it would be impossible to combine the good from Kaiser with the good from KS20 etc. It's a time thing.
It's also possible the WM6.1 releases resolve a couple of compatibility issues - though not very likely - to be honest I haven't even looked at that yet.
As for the D3Dm file that is going around... Complete and utter nonsense, as posted in other threads (with explenation), don't let it get you.

Sorry if I'm thread jacking.
Chainfire,
It seems that the official response from HTC has quieted us down a lot. I'm not seeing very much going on anymore since then. Have we all kinda lost hope and feel it's time to throw in the towel? Or maybe it's just in my head and we are all still fighting hard to get HTC to fix this for us.
Also, I read a lot of replies where HTC said they are working on a fix for mid to late feb but I think those were false reports.

ericc191 said:
Sorry if I'm thread jacking.
Chainfire,
It seems that the official response from HTC has quieted us down a lot. I'm not seeing very much going on anymore since then. Have we all kinda lost hope and feel it's time to throw in the towel? Or maybe it's just in my head and we are all still fighting hard to get HTC to fix this for us.
Also, I read a lot of replies where HTC said they are working on a fix for mid to late feb but I think those were false reports.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Things are still going on, all I can say (just painstakingly slow)

This may help...
I was recently at the "pocket hack master" website (i cant remember the name of the company) and as far as I know, they are trying to work out a solution to the qualcomm chip in our kaisers... I doubt theyll be able to provide the missing drivers, but hopefully will atleast provide a boost in the screen response for our phones.

I think the pocket hack master guys are trying to find a way to overclock the processor, not write new drivers for it. It would help response times to overclock but It won't make up for the lack of drivers. Just imagine if we had those drivers and were able to overclock. I would be pretty sure-footed about bragging that my phone was an Iphone killer. Our phone has the potential to be a bad motherfu$%er, I just wish that HTC gave a ****e about what it's customer base thought, and less about how much money they can milk out of each device. If they released those drivers, in my opinion they would have created the Iphone killer before the damn Iphone even reared it's fruity face. I used to take pride in owning HTC devices, they were the best devices available at one time. Tides have changed, and now HTC's got some competition, and in my opinion, they are failing to stand their ground. I still love my kaiser, but next time I buy a device this whole driver debacle is gonna be whispering over my shoulder telling me to go for the Eten glofiish, or some other windows mobile device, and in the end, may be the deciding factor in leaving behind my high school mobile sweetheart. Dammit I want them drivers lol. Anyways, rant over. Sorry for threadjackin'. Cheers!

sWuRv said:
I think the pocket hack master guys are trying to find a way to overclock the processor, not write new drivers for it. It would help response times to overclock but It won't make up for the lack of drivers. Just imagine if we had those drivers and were able to overclock. I would be pretty sure-footed about bragging that my phone was an Iphone killer. Our phone has the potential to be a bad motherfu$%er, I just wish that HTC gave a ****e about what it's customer base thought, and less about how much money they can milk out of each device. If they released those drivers, in my opinion they would have created the Iphone killer before the damn Iphone even reared it's fruity face. I used to take pride in owning HTC devices, they were the best devices available at one time. Tides have changed, and now HTC's got some competition, and in my opinion, they are failing to stand their ground. I still love my kaiser, but next time I buy a device this whole driver debacle is gonna be whispering over my shoulder telling me to go for the Eten glofiish, or some other windows mobile device, and in the end, may be the deciding factor in leaving behind my high school mobile sweetheart. Dammit I want them drivers lol. Anyways, rant over. Sorry for threadjackin'. Cheers!
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couldnt agree more, well said. im sure we'll find a fix soon enough, there are a lot of talented individuals who dwell on this site... something will rise from the abyss, i can feel the breakthrough coming lol and we'll all shout from the rooftops... "haha apple, victory is mine" like stewey griffin but till that day... we'll just have to wait and wait and wait for htc to tilt some new drivers our way. but yes... rant over

Chainfire said:
Furthermore, another reason I stopped trying to do it is because the KS20 drivers have their own issues, so even if it did work, it's still is not a fix-all solution, which eventually makes the whole thing not worth investing hundreds of hours. Not to say it would be impossible to combine the good from Kaiser with the good from KS20 etc. It's a time thing.
Click to expand...
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I've tried disassembling the drivers from the top down since we know how the API from D3D/OpenGL works, we just don't know how to interface with the Qualcomm crap. But sadly it going to take a lot of time, and the last time I touched ARM-like assembly was on the 65816. x86 experience doesn't apply.
I do appreciate the Kaiser is more powerful cpu and graphics-wise than the PSP and the DS, but oh well.
Thanks Chainfire.

NuShrike said:
I've tried disassembling the drivers from the top down since we know how the API from D3D/OpenGL works, we just don't know how to interface with the Qualcomm crap. But sadly it going to take a lot of time, and the last time I touched ARM-like assembly was on the 65816. x86 experience doesn't apply.
I do appreciate the Kaiser is more powerful cpu and graphics-wise than the PSP and the DS, but oh well.
Thanks Chainfire.
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The MSM7200 is more powerful than what's in the DS and PSP? lol

NuShrike said:
I do appreciate the Kaiser is more powerful cpu and graphics-wise than the PSP and the DS, but oh well.
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Wll not quite as good as the PSP but certainly a bit better than the DS, according to Qualcomms own comparison charts at least.

ericc191 said:
The MSM7200 is more powerful than what's in the DS and PSP? lol
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Click to collapse
Unless you'd just agreed with me,
DS: yes (ARM9 + ARM7 + specialized multimedia): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS#Technical_specifications
PSP: toss-up (custom mips cores w custom chip support): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable#Design_and_specifications
page 4: http://brew.qualcomm.com/bnry_brew/pdf/brew_2007/Tech-303_Ligon.pdf

NuShrike said:
I've tried disassembling the drivers from the top down since we know how the API from D3D/OpenGL works, we just don't know how to interface with the Qualcomm crap. But sadly it going to take a lot of time, and the last time I touched ARM-like assembly was on the 65816. x86 experience doesn't apply.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Everyone thanks for all the responses. Full disclosure: I work on the technical end of High Tech, although at the opposite extreme: Big, bad ass servers and clusters. I too am no ARM assembly guru, but I have messed quite extensively with some ARM based home NAS devices. I'm not dissing anyone, but I guess I should have been more specific in my question and asked for more specific answers:
WinCE like the rest of the Windows family has standard APIs for graphics, with all the nasty, bare-metal stuff abstracted into device drivers (HAL/whatever). Current WinCE (i.e. WM) uses a (somewhat compatible with the Win32/64 systems) DirectX model. The other reason for doing this is so hardware vendors (I'm looking at YOU Qualcomm!) don't have to expose their IP to the world in return THEY have to code the drivers. It's more complicated here since the MSM7200 does more than just drive the display. However the graphics driver portion of the drivers will remain constant across implementations of the chip.
So: Can someone who's actually tried this explain the issues that they ran into when attempting to extract the drivers from another device's ROM and run them on the Kaiser? Is there a list somewhere of systems that use the MSM7200 with WinCE? If we make this a community effort then we can eliminate dead ends very quickly.
Additionally, since HTC seems to be a lost cause: Has anyone approached Qualcomm directly? Something along the lines of: "You're taking a black eye with a very influential group of developers, early adopters and enthusiats. All you have to do to fix this is release the WinCE reference binary graphics drivers for the MSM7200 (no open source required!) to the xda developers forum and let them carry it from there. It doesn't cost you anything, doesn't open up any IP that couldn't be reverse engineered from existing products by a competitor anyway, and it earns you acclimation with an influential group and the type of positive publicity money can't buy. It shouldn't hurt your customer HTC either as they aren't responsible for support for non-official firmware anyway. If the carriers are worried about unlocking, that horse has bolted already, and making the graphics driver issue die down would radically decrease the publicity associated with the device and hence the odds of a carrier user discovering the unlock tools. From a licensing perspective, presumably HTC gets an end-user license with each chip anyway, even if they chose (unwisely) to not integrate and distribute the MSM7200's hardware accelerated graphics drivers."
It's called negotiation. Respect the IP, explain the impact in financial and business terms of future sales, decreased sales risk, and positive publicity. (It helps to try not to look or sound like Eric Raymond too... )
If anyone from Qualcomm is lurking and reading this, feel free to PM me. I'd be only too happy to explain how one "sells" this sort of thing internally to management. Been there, done that, printed my own damn T-shirts.
I don't know SpecG, would someone who does know the organization comment on any applicability here?
James

friends.. Im so sad with the performance in Divx of kaiser.. I had a hermes, and it is great running high quality divx..
I think the driver solution will come with WM7, I hope!!!
and if we make an overclock? L26 wm6.1 comes with an app to overclock kaiser...

jgmdean said:
So: Can someone who's actually tried this explain the issues that they ran into when attempting to extract the drivers from another device's ROM and run them on the Kaiser?
[snip]
Additionally, since HTC seems to be a lost cause: Has anyone approached Qualcomm directly?
[snip]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even when all dependencies from grabbing all of the KS20 driver files have been satisfied, booting with the KS20 DDI.dll will cause the Kaiser to hang. There's some hardware specifics either cooked in, or something is misunderstood/missed.
Can't expect a driver blob from Qualcomm because rumor has it they themselves don't have any drivers. They were so closed on IP, they wouldn't even let ATI write some drivers for them, and so Qualcomm did a ****e job trying. So rumor has it that Qualcomm is being more humble now, but it's one of those situations where Qualcomm hardware is nothing more than a poison pill.

i like to thank Chainfire for all the effort he has done
and slowly all experts are goin to collect info and miising pieces
and probably after some time we will have a solution
Anyway another thing is overclocking which might helped a bit and since even that isnt here either think we stuck for a while thanks for your time
satiros

Just a question : Did somebody of skilled cheafs around here take a look into HTC Shift drivers (as far as I now this device have also Qualcom MSM 7200 and Intel Intel Stealey) ?

Whats this I hear about the Att Fuze not having video drivers?

I havent been keeping up with the HTC Touch Pro lately, but I have been monitering it from the day it was announced until ATT released it as the Att Fuze.
I hated how terrible the graphics quality on my Tilt was, especially over the 8525 I had. I read this was because of missing video drivers.
IIRC, HTC practically had a lawsuit on their hands over this, and promised that the Touch Pro will have drivers. I think I even asked about it here and was assured that it would come with drivers.
However, I was reading reviews and some people commented about how angry they were that the phone yet again has no video drivers or Direct3D hardare support.
Is this true? Was HTC seriously stupid enough to not include drivers yet AGAIN? Or is this just AT&T's ATT Fuze version? (The guy mentioned something about possibly fixing this with a custom rom, but I am nervious about using unofficial roms on my phone that may brick it or make it incompatible with some of ATT's services).
From what I recall, no drivers exsist for the Att Tilt, they aren't just not installed, so its impossible for me to install video drivers for it. If the Att Fuze also has no video drivers, is there any way I can install those at least or do these too not exsist?

It does come with drivers, and I personally have not had any issues (at least with YouTube videos). I have not tried movies. There are some updated 3D drivers to improve frame rate that were initially developed for the Diamond. See here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2892184&postcount=357

It has drivers for 3D (OpenGL hardware acceleration) but IMO the GPU (or drivers) is poor. You get low FPS, tears (vsync), etc etc..
It seems that 2D graphics lacks hardware acceleration , so apps/tasks that are using DirectDraw (for eg.) are below per performance in comparison to Marvell CPUs devices
emesbe that's an OpenGL wrapper for Direct3D apps (applications such as diamond vhologram)
Please see these topics:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=463407
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=449391
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=442712

Cyber Akuma said:
IIRC, HTC practically had a lawsuit on their hands over this...
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Click to collapse
Careful, I'll just butt-in to limit continued misinformation. Such a sourcing for a 'lawsuit' were from very vocal but horribly ill-informed users who ended up being incapable of finding a legal counsel to represent their desire for a frivolous case. Whining erupted due to some wrongly assuming that because a device may have the hardware capable of certain performance that it was the responsibility of the OEM to provide the full software capabilities to make use of that hardware. The issues were not of misrepresentation of the software/hardware by HTC but of HTC choosing to develop products without the extra expense for licensing drivers for all of its hardware capabilities and some tech-curious end-users who determined that they were not receiving all that the physical hardware was capable of. IMO, greed came in and some very vocal end-users demanded what they were not necessarily entitled to.
...little different than you having to pay extra to license available features in an app such Nero Burning ROM, or some carriers (often Verizon...) releasing models of HTC devices which do have the same GPSOne capabilities of other carriers' models but Verizon choosing not to fully open up such features to a GPS app of choice. Another analogy may be the early ROMs for the HTC Touch/Vogue and Titan/Mogul/6800/P4000 where the GPS drivers were not available at all.
As far as Direct 3D/Show/Draw drivers of the Raphael derivatives -- toss out the FUD that some have spread because THE VIDEO DRIVERS ARE THERE. As it stands, they're relatively new devices where the software may get updated and performance improved.

Keystone said:
Careful, I'll just butt-in to limit continued misinformation. Such a sourcing for a 'lawsuit' were from very vocal but horribly ill-informed users who ended up being incapable of finding a legal counsel to represent their desire for a frivolous case. Whining erupted due to some wrongly assuming that because a device may have the hardware capable of certain performance that it was the responsibility of the OEM to provide the full software capabilities to make use of that hardware. The issues were not of misrepresentation of the software/hardware by HTC but of HTC choosing to develop products without the extra expense for licensing drivers for all of its hardware capabilities and some tech-curious end-users who determined that they were not receiving all that the physical hardware was capable of. IMO, greed came in and some very vocal end-users demanded what they were not necessarily entitled to.
...little different than you having to pay extra to license available features in an app such Nero Burning ROM, or some carriers (often Verizon...) releasing models of HTC devices which do have the same GPSOne capabilities of other carriers' models but Verizon choosing not to fully open up such features to a GPS app of choice. Another analogy may be the early ROMs for the HTC Touch/Vogue and Titan/Mogul/6800/P4000 where the GPS drivers were not available at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand.
First of all, I was talking about the Tilt's problem, not the Fuze.
And I was wondering how a lawsuit like that would hold, though I have seen weirder things get accepted, and sometimes the threat of a class action lawsuit is enough to push a company to fix something. (worked for Sony and Microsoft).
The hardware was ADVERTISED after all, its like buying a laptop that advertises having a fairly decent range mobile GPU but not progiving any drivers anywhere for it, forcing you to run it in standard VGA mode.
Keystone said:
As far as Direct 3D/Show/Draw drivers of the Raphael derivatives -- toss out the FUD that some have spread because THE VIDEO DRIVERS ARE THERE. As it stands, they're relatively new devices where the software may get updated and performance improved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was asking if it was true that the Fuze dosen't have drivers, I didn't flat out say it does not.

Cyber Akuma said:
The hardware was ADVERTISED after all
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Click to collapse
...I challenge you to quote that of HTC in regards to the questioned Direct 3D/show/draw drivers. Proclaiming generalities in a device's abilities is absolutely not on par to advertising to the end user specific metrics of performance and/or features sets. That is the founding flaw for the over-zealous lot who failed in gaining legal counsel for their whine.
No, it is not on par to purchasing most laptop or desktop PCs with their individually assembled components. These PDA/phones are implemented as the OEM and purchasing carriers see fit and that often includes a cross-device, pre-manufactured all-in-one chipset that do not necessitate that the customer license every component and feature of them -- though the same extra software licensing purchases to activate included hardware capabilities sometimes on PCs and laptops also exists.
The point that you seem to miss is that one is not automatically entitled to access every feature in hardware of your possession. Property rights of software is often required to legally drive such hardware. The world is not a free for all and it is often up to the manufacturer's of core components and the OEMs to work out what will be purchases/licensed and what will not. I understand that as an efficient business model to only manufacture a single product and to sell it as a base and then sell optional licenses for its separate features. This is not equal to video cards from ATI or nVidia where the drivers are released for public access and installation or SDKs for open source OS' such as Linux.
Cyber Akuma said:
First of all, I was talking about the Tilt's problem, not the Fuze.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, this topic of yours in the Raphael forum was quite clear upon your concerns of the Fuze/Raphael repeating your perceived errors of the Tilt.
Cyber Akuma said:
I was asking if it was true that the Fuze dosen't have drivers, I didn't flat out say it does not.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll remind you of what you presented:
Cyber Akuma said:
However, I was reading reviews and some people commented about how angry they were that the phone yet again has no video drivers or Direct3D hardare support.
Is this true? Was HTC seriously stupid enough to not include drivers yet AGAIN? Or is this just AT&T's ATT Fuze version?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You made a comments upon your perception of "missing drivers" and then asked for conformation. I saw it as a question looking for accurate information and answered it as such. As I also contributed, that there is the spreading of FUD (post #4)) out there that is confusing people. That thread concerned the Fuze and was it along with erring reviewers sources for your misinformation?
The certain answer again is that the Raphael derivatives do have the afformentioned drivers. That is confirmed with inclusion of the associated *.dll's and OS registry entries. Some previous HTC devices did not include all of those entries.

is bootloader finally "cracked"?

http://www.wix.com/palmercurling/project-bootloader-freedom
seems that kexec methods works...and probably today or tomorrow source code will be released....

if that's true, then it'll be good news
that will make Dexter porting of 2.2 even easier

Hm... Maybe if this work.. Dexer can try with 2.3

grigorbg said:
Hm... Maybe if this work.. Dexer can try with 2.3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dexter already explain why 2.3 is not going to work

He didn't say it's not gonna work, he say it MIGHT not work but he'll test it. That's what he said.

Vistaus said:
He didn't say it's not gonna work, he say it MIGHT not work but he'll test it. That's what he said.
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Click to collapse
Well, he said that 2.3 may need newer kernel, not an 2.6.29 that works on xt720, cause of bootloader...
So, i hope that will helps!

That's what I meant. Sorry for the confusion. He said MAY need a newer kernel, but it's not clear yet 'cause he doesn't have the XT720 yet nor 2.3, so maybe it'll work.
And btw, I dunno if you guys actually read the first post in this thread but if the bootloader is cracked in some way, then it doesn't matter anymore 'cause we can flash any custom kernel then.

Sure, it's only was message about why Dexter says it's not going to work.
People from droid-developers.org also already tried much attemps... with kexec also...
For now.. no success =(

Motorola just marked the request to unlock the Droid X bootloader as "Implemented" here!!!:
http://getsatisfaction.com/motorola/topics/please_unlock_the_droid_x_bootloader
This may be related to:
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/01/1...bootloaders-looks-to-partner-with-developers/
which links to a Facebook response by Motorola that reads:
Motorola - We apologize for the feedback we provided regarding our bootloader policy. The response does not reflect the views of Motorola.
We are working closely with our partners to offer a bootloader solution that will enable developers to use our devices as a development platform while still protecting our users’ interests. More detailed information will follow as we get closer to availability.
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Click to collapse
I'm incredulous. I really don't want to get my hopes up. We need a "support group" and seven step program.
Edit: More coverage of the incident
http://androinica.com/2011/01/19/motorola-unsure-of-its-own-bootloader-policy/
http://nexus404.com/Blog/2011/01/20...m-users-to-go-away-then-begs-for-forgiveness/

why is the bootloader so difficult to crack?
Why is the bootloader so difficult to crack?

c_urbanek said:
Why is the bootloader so difficult to crack?
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Click to collapse
The short answer is that the security in the bootloader is based on very high quality mathematics.
Basically it's what's called a NP-complete problem (I think, I'm an armchair cryptographer only). Think of this this way, we have some sort of algorithm (equations are a kind of algorithm):
45 * x + 32 = 76
Now, there are two ways to find values of x that satisfy this equation. The way we are taught in school is to use the rules of arithmetic to convert the algorithm into a simpler algorithm that yields an expression we can evaluate directly. That's pretty fast.
Now assume you didn't learn how to do that and that nobody in the world knows how to do it. The other way to solve it is to try plugging in values of x on the left-hand side until you find a value that when evaluated gives 76. That way could take a very long time. In fact, you can calculate how long you expect it will take based on how long it takes to test a single value and the expected number of values you'll have to test. (On computers, numbers can be very large, but they can't be infinite)
Fundamentally, this gets to a very important unanswered question in computer science and mathematics called "P ?= NP" which essentially asks: can every possible algorithm be simplified somehow to be solved faster than plugging numbers (over simplified a bit) or are there some algorithms that can only be solved by trying different values until one works. Digitial cryptography is based on finding algorithms that can't be solved easily with current knowledge (the research question is can you find an algorithm and prove that it can never be simplified--again oversimplified a bit).
The bootloader uses one of these algorithms (in the sense that publicly nobody knows anybody that can simplify it--insert NSA conspiracy theories). I think I read somewhere that based on the keysize and using the best algorithms available to search the keyspace, the expected amount of time required to crack the key using all of the available computing power in the world is something like 15-30 years. There was the distributed cracking effort, but they were using very inefficient algorithms that supposedly would take at least over 1000 years (some people said it would take longer than the life of the universe). Some have said that hardware that should be available in five years should be able to break it in five years or something like that. I'm probably remembering the details wrong, but in any case it's not good news.
So, that leaves us with essentially five ways to crack the bootloader:
(1) Look for the key with the expectation to never find in the lifetime of the device,
(2) Find a bug in the implementation of the the bootloader itself (could be either a hardware or software bug),
(3) physically modify the phone to disable the check,
(4) find an efficient attack on the algorithm (i.e. prove this particular encryption isn't one of the mythical unsolvable ones),
(5) convince Motorola to just give it to us.

I picked this XT720 phone over iphone as it will be better with open source community will do new tech y things I will learn and enjoy best we can ever have as in phone. Motorola did tried to diminish the impact for product with the poor upgrade support. I was thinking of selling ( as most of us did thought before Dexter the man behind the rescue operation and best of this community ) my phone. Now i must say it has much better response, satisfaction and relief. This new news has now pumped up everything that we are going to be best in this competition. I think only we have to look for is the alternative for front camera ( something like usb camera attachment or something like that.. may be silly of me I am dreaming ) and this will be best product in the line. Love you people for making my wrong decision worth. Cheers to my XT720 community.
Thanks to all who joined hand for better:

@Mio: Indeed. Btw, number 3 or 4 is already solved by booting a ROM via 2nd init. That is what ROM-bakers do on the Milestone 2 and the Defy. We could do that too.

We need a top noch developer to crack this bootloader that's it.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

Honeycomb Rumor

Before we start, it may appear Motorola and Samsung will be the only ones who will have a Honeycomb product until at least May/June. The reasons being:-
1. Honeycomb supply to manufacturers have been delayed until May/June. I dont know exactly what this means except that the manufacturers I work with cannot get access to Honeycomb for their products (but it may be related to the next rumor).
2. Honeycomb wont be open sourced and a major manufacturer is working with Google on trying to secure licensing.
Sorry I cant be more specific than this. The second rumor contradicts everything Google has done so far, but if I mention the manufacturer involved, it lends weight to the rumor.
Does anyone else have any further information to collaborate/debunk these rumors?
EDIT: When I say Honeycomb wont be open sourced, I meant Google plans to close source it and Honeycomb will require a license.

I'm gonna call BS on all of the above.
#1. New member, first post, no sources or company names given.
#2. Honeycomb SDK is already published. Functional installs of Honeycomb can and have already been built from this.
#3. Licensing means they CANNOT closed source it
Either present us with some evidence, or quit spouting rubbish.

FloatingFatMan said:
I'm gonna call BS on all of the above.
#1. New member, first post, no sources or company names given.
#2. Honeycomb SDK is already published. Functional installs of Honeycomb can and have already been built from this.
#3. Licensing means they CANNOT closed source it
Either present us with some evidence, or quit spouting rubbish.
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^ couldn't put it better myself.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

There is a reason why this is a new account, if it isnt obvious to you.
I am not asking for speculative opinions, I am wondering if there is anyone else in the industry hearing either of these rumors.

Atleast give some sources?
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App

Sorry, the market for real Honeycomb products is actually very small at the moment so any hints will reveal too much. Please, if anyone else has heard anything just PM me.

Small huh? There are plenty of devices coming out quite soon. Acer's Iconia Tab A500, for example, has just had its FCC approval granted and will be out mid-April. That's running Honeycomb, so kinda slaps your "rumours" in the chops about it not being available until June.

FloatingFatMan said:
#3. Licensing means they CANNOT closed source it
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What licence exactly?
FYI Android itself is licensed under the Apache software license, which is a non-copyleft licence.
If Google so chose, they could keep Honeycomb itself closed source, and their only open source requirement would be publishing the source for the linux kernel on shipping devices.
Regards,
Dave

foxmeister said:
What licence exactly?
FYI Android itself is licensed under the Apache software license, which is a non-copyleft licence.
If Google so chose, they could keep Honeycomb itself closed source, and their only open source requirement would be publishing the source for the linux kernel on shipping devices.
Regards,
Dave
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Because they've already released it under open license.

FloatingFatMan said:
Because they've already released it under open license.
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The latest release of Android released under the Apache Software Licence is Gingerbread - that can't be taken back.
However, anything built on top of that source can be closed source if the developer so wishes, and that includes Honeycomb!
I still expect Google to release Honeycomb under the ASL, but the point it - *they don't have to!*.
Regards,
Dave

Seriously guys,do you really think that in times like these we're living,Google will abandon the idea that made their OS so successful?I highly doubt that...

tolis626 said:
Seriously guys,do you really think that in times like these we're living,Google will abandon the idea that made their OS so successful?I highly doubt that...
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I absolutely agree with you - I cannot fathom any reason for Google to make Honeycomb close source. This rumor (#2) is from a bigger company than the company that provided the first rumor.

Interesting news ! Thanks for the share !

FloatingFatMan said:
I'm gonna call BS on all of the above.
#1. New member, first post, no sources or company names given.
[...]
Either present us with some evidence, or quit spouting rubbish.
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Same as the troll who claimed Samsung were trying to charge networks for software updates yet everyone was willing to believe that...
I'm not arguing that this looks and smells like trolling, merely attempting to highlight that plenty of people round here seem to be quite happy to 'never let the facts get in the way of a good story'.

Sorry to double-post but Engadget has an article on the matter.
Here's a quote from Google:
Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites such as widgets, multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization. While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. Until then, we've decided not to release Honeycomb to open source. We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready.
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Absolutely no mention of licences.
It does, on the other hand, talk of Honeycomb 'not being ready, which ties in to a lot of reviews and impressions of it as an OS.
Again, I feel this is very similar to the 'Samsung charging for upgrades' rumour - something takes a little bit longer than normal to happen and a minority start making up ridiculous rumours to try and explain it.

Step666 said:
Sorry to double-post but
Here's a quote from Google:
Absolutely no mention of licences.
It does, on the other hand, talk of Honeycomb 'not being ready, which ties in to a lot of reviews and impressions of it as an OS.
Again, I feel this is very similar to the 'Samsung charging for upgrades' rumour - something takes a little bit longer than normal to happen and a minority start making up ridiculous rumours to try and explain it.
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I am not sure whether my post occurred before the Engadget article or not, but this article certainly validates rumor #1. It would be interesting to see how this affects manufacturers who have announced Honeycomb products (one poster mentioned Acer earlier). I know some are launching Gingerbread instead, which isnt ideal.
While the link between the two rumors is subject to interpretation, the two rumors were taken from different sources. The second rumor is less believable (even to me) however, the source is from a significantly larger company.

No, it doesn't validate rumour number one.
You claimed that manufacturers are unable to get a copy of Honeycomb - there's a big difference between Google publicly releasing the source code and passing copies of it to manufacturers.
Do you really think that when Google released Froyo's or GIngerbread's source code that that was the first time HTC, Samsung etc had seen it?
I really don't.
Also, as has been pointed out already, the fact that there are Honeycomb devices coming from a range of manufacturers goes some way to disproving your point.
As for the believability of your rumours, unless you can back them up with any sort of proof, I don't see any reason to believe either of them.

Well the op might be on to something at least. I'm not buying that top tier manufacturers won't be able to get the code as LG and Acer among others are going to be releasing tablets with honeycomb in the coming weeks.
http://www.androidcentral.com/google-not-open-sourcing-honeycomb-says-bloomberg

Thank you so much for this article - this is another source verifying the difficulty of manufacturers getting honeycomb source code. There is no doubt the Tier 1 companies will get preferential access to the code - the question is, who is seen as Tier 1 by Google.
Perhaps in regards to licensing, this may be just a legal formality for companies to get access to Honeycomb at the moment, and it is unclear whether these licenses will cost anything.
Thank you again, this has been a great help. This is a third party source we can use to explain to our clients why we cannot launch honeycomb at the date we promised.

I am glad Google isn't releasing the code so cheap companies can't just stick Honeycomb on crap devices and make it look bad.
Sent from my Incredible with the XDA Premium App.

[REF] Tegra Technical Reference Manual

Here is the link: http://developer.nvidia.com/tegra-2-technical-reference-manual
Isn't this what we need for better Tegra development? Especially for getting custom ICS kernals booted and writen.
This hasn't been out for more than a month.
Admins please move this thread if not in the correct forum.

jwuerz said:
Here is the link: http://developer.nvidia.com/tegra-2-technical-reference-manual
Isn't this what we need for better Tegra development? Especially for getting custom ICS kernals booted and writen.
This hasn't been out for more than a month.
Admins please move this thread if not in the correct forum.
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That certainly LOOKS useful.
EDIT:
Did you notice that's just the table of contents? It's not the ACTUAL technical reference manual. You have to apply and be approved to gain access.

I've applied. It takes up to a month to gain access, BUT it looks like this could be rather useful. More people need to apply.
Sent from my LG-P999

This line makes the point quite moot:
"Internal functional units such as video and graphics hardware acceleration are controlled by NVIDIA provided software and not documented."

jeremyritzmann said:
I've applied. It takes up to a month to gain access, BUT it looks like this could be rather useful. More people need to apply.
Sent from my LG-P999
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See, the problem is, even if you were given the technical specifications, are you capable of writing a driver from the ground up? If not, then you've simply wasted NVidia's time, and there's apparently a LOT of that going on right now.
See this post:
https://plus.google.com/115049428938715274412/posts/KycR8ZjeUiS
One of the things the OP mentions in the comments is that NVIDIA is being overwhelmed (his word was Confused) by the amount of community requests for all sorts of things, when half of them aren't even what's needed to get ICS working, or are being asked for by people not qualified to do anything with them.
Those who know what to do with technical reference manauls already know how to apply for them. Others applying for them is just going to make NVIDIA 1) get tired of dealing with the community and 2) Liable to make it HARDER to get information in the future because they're tired of people wasting their time.
I'm not getting on to you, just saying that we "in the community" need to have a little perspective on the matter. ICS source hasn't even been out for more than a couple of weeks. The OEMs, even if they're intent on releasing ICS for devices, haven't even had time *WITH* resources from NVIDIA, to get much done.

I disagree
I have to believe that the most effective way of getting the open access we want (ala Texas instruments and omap) is to make them aware of just how much demand there is for it.
In other words, show them just how much easier their life could be if they open sourced the drivers.
Everyone should call nvidia and tell them exactly what we want
If they have to deal with 20 calls a day re this issue, they might take it seriously.
It worked with htc and Sony re locked bootloaders.....
Call nvidia at 408 486 2000 and ask for developer relations.
Then just politely make them aware of our desire to have the drivers open sourced.
----Someone more versed with the technical issues -- is there anything else we should be asking for? ----
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

Well, seeing as I am quite versatile when it comes with coding period,I don't think there is any reason to think that I couldn't write one if I had the *time* to do write it. I do agree that as far as other folks requesting open sourcing the driver code, we do need to be more *focused* in our approach, instead of bogging down their CSR departments with useless demands.
On a personal note, I wouldn't be quite so flamish when referencing a simple comment from someone you don't know, about a comment that obviously isn't an in depth explanation of *why* I've requested the technical specs manual(which was done WELL before I commented on this thread). It makes you appear as if you're intent was to come off as bullish. It does an equal amount of damage to the community as less than dev savvy folks requesting/posting silly things.
/rant
lotherius said:
See, the problem is, even if you were given the technical specifications, are you capable of writing a driver from the ground up? If not, then you've simply wasted NVidia's time, and there's apparently a LOT of that going on right now.
See this post:
https://plus.google.com/115049428938715274412/posts/KycR8ZjeUiS
One of the things the OP mentions in the comments is that NVIDIA is being overwhelmed (his word was Confused) by the amount of community requests for all sorts of things, when half of them aren't even what's needed to get ICS working, or are being asked for by people not qualified to do anything with them.
Those who know what to do with technical reference manauls already know how to apply for them. Others applying for them is just going to make NVIDIA 1) get tired of dealing with the community and 2) Liable to make it HARDER to get information in the future because they're tired of people wasting their time.
I'm not getting on to you, just saying that we "in the community" need to have a little perspective on the matter. ICS source hasn't even been out for more than a couple of weeks. The OEMs, even if they're intent on releasing ICS for devices, haven't even had time *WITH* resources from NVIDIA, to get much done.
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Sent from my LG-P999

Agreed, but there are plenty of dev's that could use an in depth look at the chipset specs.
GenghisKhan67 said:
This line makes the point quite moot:
"Internal functional units such as video and graphics hardware acceleration are controlled by NVIDIA provided software and not documented."
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Sent from my LG-P999

hi, someone can download and upload the documentation for Tegra 2 and Tegra 3