ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[naz <thenazish@xxxxxxxxx>]

I apologize if the question is off topic.

Here's some context - I was compiling Ubuntu touch for my note 2 and while
extracting the proprietary blobs, had all these questions. Would appreciate
if you can throw any light.

Do Oems when manufacturing devices have to deal with blobs? e.g. does Apple
or Google or  Samsung etc. get access to say BCM4334 specifications to
write the drivers themselves or does broadcomm provide the source code for
device drivers which in  turn is optimized by oems or do the oems just have
to live with binary blobs?

Recently I came across this device,  Notion Ink's Adam.  The manufacturers
were claiming that they weren't able to release an ICS update because nvdia
wasn't releasing a camera driver. Is this really possible?  When
manufacturers ink a deal with hardware makers don't they get access to
source code.

Thanks.