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My understanding is that it is not legal to redistribute the
binary-only Nokia stuff. I base this on my read of the
click-through license on http://www.maem
o.org/downloads/d2.php, it
quite appears clear to me that copying and redistribution
are not
allowed (I am not a lawyer and I do not work for Nokia).
On the other hand, there is ample information about creating
custom
images on the maemo website, much of it provided by Nokia.
This
could be an indication that Nokia are at least open to the
idea.
Using at least some of the non-redistributable binary
components would
be necessary to make any custom image usable in any general
sense
(e.g. to use wifi). It would be interesting to get
clarification
from Nokia on this. I would suspect anyone who wants to
deploy a
custom solution based on the 770 would need to negotiate
individually
with Nokia to get permission for the binaries.
Another approach to get at customized devices would be to
write a
script that starts from a device initialize to a stock
image, and then
both installs new code, and removes unwanted components.
It's
probably more hassle from a development, but maybe less pain
than
dealing with the lawyers. 
The overall situation between open and closed is quite mixed
on the
770. Some details of how sound related stuff on the 770
work are out
there, but scattered somewhat between the maemo website,
mailing
lists, etc. Perhaps the most salient information is as
follows.
The hardware side of audio is quite unconventional in the
sense that
it does not have a traditional separate sound chip, but
instead uses
the DSP in the OMAP processor to do most audio work. The
lowest
level details of this are handled by DSP code written by
Nokia, and
released in binary only (non-redistributable) fashion.
My
impression is that the licensing terms of this DSP code is
unlikely to
change anytime soon. This is certainly limiting for
certain people
interested in driver like development; e.g. there seems to
be a lot of
pent up frustration about the lack of bluetooth headset
support, and
this is one area where the lack of information about the DSP
and
hardware side of things in general makes it virtually
impossible for
anyone but Nokia to come up with a solution.
On the brighter side, the ARM/Linux side of the sound
software has
undergone several transitions through the sequence of
releases of the
maemo platform. The most recent scirroco release is
notable because
it appears that most (all?) of the "linux-side"
gstreamer code
relating to the DSP has become open source. There has been
and still
is virtually no documentation to the 770 specific gstreamer
elements,
so the source code release is a major boon (thanks Nokia!).
- -- Buck
Arno Onken wrote:
> Thanks for the quick reply!
>
> Yes, the wlan driver comes with the rootfs and so you
can get sound
> working by using binary files from the production
image. But the
> question was actually more about license issues, the
freedom of the
> software. Is it binary only or is the source available?
Can you use it
> for any purpose? And can you copy and redistribute
(modfied) versions?
>
> Arno
>
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