Free software is software you can use, share, modify and redistribute. Open printer plans to use a rpi zero w. The rpi zero w requires non free software in order to work. The question is, can you replace the rpi zero w with a beaglebone black such that the beaglebone black runs a free software gnu linux system? It appears the open printer will rely on cups software, which has a free software license. Thanks.
Sure why not, it’s linux in the end… (No WiFi/Bluetooth out of box on BBB)
Please do feel free to share a writeup when you do it..
They don’t state the communication channel between the STM32 and PI at this time.
Regards,
Try this one
i bet the closed ‘firmware’ of the wl1835 will putt off poster..
Regards,
Yes, it’s not easy being a purist in today’s software landscape.
That being said, I also detest all the binary firmware blobs
nearly as much as chip datasheets under NDA wraps;
it really shouldn’t be necessary in this day and age.
Side question then, what about the various firmware that gets loaded into the kernel so am335x-bone-scale-data, am335x-evm-scale-data, am335x-pm-firmware, regulatory.db. IIRC I load three of these into the kernel, and some are needed - like the firmware for the M3, which is needed to bring up the main cores properly, and so is kinda essential. Yes the firmware is available from TI, but is it open? I’m not sure myself …
m3 power firmware - which is under a Open Source Materials license … so kinda open.
The full firmware - this is the full firmware, can’t see the license.
The M3 firmware is weird, it’s open as far as source available, but under a ti license. As you found they have the second repo with the bins built for easy usage.
Forgot the weird branches…
This branch has the bins we use and full source : processor-firmware/ti-amx3-cm3-pm-firmware - Consolidated central location of various TI firmware source and binary projects hosted previously in various locations.
not easy being a purist in today’s software landscape.
A lot of computing is covered by free software. What frequently has non free software implications is hardware. Therefore it is important to act on every option to get hardware able to run entirely on free software. The open printer might be such an option.
Your link
states a license. Does that license also govern the m3 firmware?
The license in that repo talks about the object files..