points by ssl-3 15 hours ago | 0 comments
I did not write that paragraph, my friend.
I don't know why ChiTu does whatever they do. All I know is that demonstrate a trend of keeping their source buttoned up instead of open.
[–] Dylan16807 15 hours ago
[–] bsder 7 hours ago
Chitu, IIRC, originally were open when they were using the initial color LCDs (off the shelf) and then the first iteration of monochrome ones (required NRE as nobody made 1920x1080 monochrom LCDs by then). And then everybody in the universe cloned them and Chitu got mad and Chitu made sure that the next iterations of monochrome LCDs had encrypted driver chips.
This isn't an unsolvable problem. It takes probably less than $100K (and probably less than $50K) in NRE to make a truly open-source monochrome LCD and driver chip. This is on the order of a plastic injection mold.
But everybody simply whines rather than banding together, coughing up the CASH, and actually FIXING the problem once and for all.
Sadly, this seems to be standard operating procedure in the world of open source.
[–] Dylan16807 5 hours ago
How did everyone clone the first generation with monochrome LCDs though, if they weren't off the shelf?
My bad.
But that paragraph is what my original question is about.