The ELCE 2010 keynote by Ari Rauch (Texas Instruments / OMAP)

I've just attended the ELCE 2010 keynote by Ari Rauch, where he was talking about how much TI OMAP is committed to Linux. This doesn't really come as a big surprise to me. The OMAP SoCs are used mostly as Application Processors for smart phones. As TI is not a supplier of APs for Apple, Symbian and Windows Mobile are dead, this really only leaves Linux-based operating systems like Android, Meego, LiMo & co.

One of his main points was we have to be pragmatic, i.e. the customer requirements for performance etc. are key. If there is an open way to fulfill them: fine. If not: fine, too.

The only real question that was asked after the keynote was the usual question of whether there will be any Free/Open graphics drivers for the Imagination GPU thats inside their OMAP3/OMAP4 SoCs. I already predicted the response: We have to be pragmatic about it. TI is trying to convince Imagination to open up, but they are afraid of doing so and don't see what this would gain them.

He further added the statement if there is a competitive more open GPU, they will look into using it.

The other bad taste I got from this keynote is the frequent mention of the industry embracing innovation provided by the FOSS community. Embracing was the very term that Microsoft always used when they started to create their custom versions/dialects of HTML, Kerberos and other standards.

The think that seemed to be missing is any awareness for the sharing attitude: I.e. the industry using the innovations that the community creates, but giving back an equal amount, or at least opening up in response. This cannot be a one-way road where the industry simply taps into the creative potential of the community, to create closed products and profit from stuff they have simply scraped off the community backyard.

ST-Ericsson glues gstreamer into Android - and makes it proprietary

It is always surprising what kind of things the industry is coming up with ;)

Here at ELCE, ST-Ericsson has just presented how they replaced OpenCore with gstreamer as the supplier/provider of multimedia encoding/decoding to the Android software stack.

This is definitely an interesting technical solution - probably one that makes sense if you have existing gstreamer modules/drivers.

What really makes me wonder though, is their licensing. To make sure only ST-Ericsson customers can use it, they have implemented a glue layer library that ties into android, and this library is binary-only licensed and distributed under terms that permit to use it together with their hardware.

Isn't it strange? Now the Android software stack is Free Software, and gstreamer is Free Software. But ST-Ericsson needs to put some proprietary blob in the middle. Of course, legally they are allowed to do it: Android is Apache-style licensed and gstreamer is LGPL. But from a moral/ethical/technical point of view, it still is blasphemy to me.

UPDATE: The license is actually a 'standard' proprietary license. There seem to be technical reasons that tie this code to the specific SoC of ST-Ericsson. Nonetheless, I keep my original criticism: It has a bad aftertaste if you combine two FOSS programs by a proprietary layer in between