Upstream

[julianfairfax]

Your repo seems to be the origin of the only remaining patch the PT2 needs on mainline: the patch to add support for the Wi-Fi driver. Have you considered trying to upstream it?

[Danct12]

Honestly, the Wi-Fi driver needs a huge rewrite. If you're unaware of, the driver we received were based on CW1200 driver with a bunch of legacy code that are hacked up together for the latest kernel.

We still need BES confirmation on the firmware if we want to upstream it to linux-firmware.

[julianfairfax]

Honestly, the Wi-Fi driver needs a huge rewrite.

I agree, but doubt it will ever happen.

But, 384870d is a device tree change that is needed regardless of whatever state the driver is in? That can be upstreamed?

We still need BES confirmation on the firmware if we want to upstream it to linux-firmware.

I emailed Pine64 and this is how the exchange went:

Hi Julian,

You can refer to https://github.com/OneDeuxTriSeiGo/device_soc_bestechnic/tree/master/bes2600

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Regards,
Info Team
On 9/15/2024 7:25 PM, Info Team wrote:
Hi Julian,

You may need to consult with Danct.

Regards,
Info Team
On 9/15/2024 10:16 AM, Julian wrote:
Hello,

Thanks for your quick response!

There is no Apache2 licence file in the firmware repo, which makes sense because there's no source code either.

Regards,

Julian

-------- Ursprüngliche Nachricht --------
Am 15.09.24 17:39 um Info Team schrieb :
Hi Julian,

BES already allowed PINE64 to distribute the firmware even before we agreed to use their Wifi/BT chip. Their licensing term is under Apache 2.

Regards,
Info Team
On 9/15/2024 12:09 AM, Julian wrote:
Hello,

I'm a Mobian developer maintaining support for the PineTab2 on Mobian. It's entirely mainline aside from the Wi-Fi driver. It has taken a while, but the driver is now in a usable state and we would like to include it in our images.

However, we cannot include the firmware because we don't have permission to distribute it. Examples of how such permission looks like can be found here:

• https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/LICENCE.mediatek
• https://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs//non-free-firmware/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-nonfree_20230210-5_copyright

I opened an issue on the repository containing the firmware to track this issue. I am sure you have a contact to the OEM of the Wi-Fi chip and firmware. I am asking you to contact them to obtain this permission to distribute the firmware, and to put it in the repo which contains the firmware.

Thank you very much for your help and for all the devices you have made over the years!

Julian

[459below]

Hi @julianfairfax

It seems to me that the discussion has slowed down. Regarding BES's firmware redistribution, I’m unsure of the connection between the firmware blobs and the repository at https://github.com/OneDeuxTriSeiGo/device_soc_bestechnic/tree/master/bes2600 licensed under Apache 2.

1. Do you believe this could be the source code for files like best2002_fw_boot_sdio.bin?

2. Do we need Danct12's explicit consent to propose an upstream merge for this commit? 384870d

I'd appreciate your insights.

[Newbytee]

Do we need Danct12's explicit consent to propose an upstream merge for this commit? 384870d

You can send it and specify the original author with From:: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.17/process/submitting-patches.html#the-canonical-patch-format

However, it is of course good to try to contact the author in case there is a good reason why they haven't upstreamed it yet.

[julianfairfax]

Do we need Danct12's explicit consent to propose an upstream merge for this commit? 384870d

You can send it and specify the original author with From:: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.17/process/submitting-patches.html#the-canonical-patch-format

However, it is of course good to try to contact the author in case there is a good reason why they haven't upstreamed it yet.

Thanks for the info. In any case, I don't intend to do the upstreaming process myself, nor do I intend to maintain the Wi-Fi driver myself. I don't have any kernel development experience.