From: Linus Nielsen Feltzing <linus_at_haxx.se>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 10:05:13 +0200

BlueChip wrote:
>> In order to get this functionality, you have to *buy* the chip with
>> the firmware upgrade. Apparently there's some "proprietary" code in
>> there that they don't want to release. Dunno if that's legit or just BS.
>
> Whatever it is, it's illegal (see GPL)

As far as I can tell, it isn't. Think of it as a BIOS. The code
*calling* the BIOS must be open source, as it is part of Open Neo, but
the secret code in the flash doesn't have to, as it is a separate piece
of software, not even linked with Open Neo.

This is not an issue, however, as they have released the voice code, and
all it does is play ordinary mp3 files, without calling any external
code (just checked their CVS).

The Voice Chip is probably nothing more than a simple flash chip with a
preprogrammed ID somewhere, identifying it as a voice chip. The flash
programming utility (which isn't open source as far as I can see )
checks for this and refuses to program a voice firmware in a non-voice chip.

> Have you ever tried selecting "Neo35" from the menu in the source code
> build tool?
> No idea what will happen - but it could be fun finding out?

We can compile for the Neo, but it will crash if you try to run it.

Linus
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Received on 2004-04-19