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Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

Broadcom is still Broadcom.

It doesn't look like BCM is intending to release any more datasheets/programming information either, which is not surprising. There will probably never be any detailed information released, officially or otherwise, on any BCM SoCs, even after they're long EOL'd.

As far as openness is concerned the RPi is basically a smartphone/tablet SoC devboard, with most of the hardware proprietary - while its Chinese competitors (Allwinner, Mediatek, Rockchip, etc.) are officially quite closed too, the docs for many of their SoCs are available (admittedly leaked; but they seem to be turning a blind eye to it.) They're also at least a Cortex-A7.

I wonder how the RPi2 compares to this:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-...

Dual 1GHz A7s, 512MB, SATA, HDMI, USB, Ethernet (integrated on SoC, not through USB), fully open-source, in the same price range.

If only uploading the proprietary GPU firmware wasn't necessary to just launch the CPU, even at the cost of 3D acceleration and stuff like that, I'd be happy with it. It may even have reflashable closed blob inside - I know RMS wouldn't be happy with that, but I would. RasPi 1, however, required the user to provide a non-free blob on SD card, which is what I'm extremely unhappy with.

What does this really matter? A closed blob is a closed blob, it's not like the cpu itself isn't a closed blob. Now on the other hand, if the closed blob entails that functionality you expected can be taken away from you without your control, that's a different matter. Sure, I don't put it far beyond Broadcom, but that's a different matter.

bunnie describes the culture in Shenzen that allows for those leaked datasheets as "gongkai". He did a really awesome talk about it at [31c3]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msrTR3hNDQM

Or this: http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code...

Quad core, 1 GB. Released just 2 months ago. Same price as the Pi.

It's not just the hardware peripherals, tutorials, books and community count for a lot also.

Agreed. Among all the SBC forums, the Pi's is the friendliest community I've come across. You're almost guaranteed to get a reply and it's usually a useful one.

Try asking for something as simple as electrical specifications on the GPIO pins (Broadcom released the GPIO registers, but oddly enough not the electrical specs):

http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=63362

Allwinner will give you their datasheets if you email them. Mediatek not so much (& no experience with Rockchip).

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