ESP8266 Community Forum

- Sun Sep 07, 2014 12:06 pm #310

I share your sentiment regarding "big player" and crutches required for a chip - look at MT7681 module - it's full of breadcrumbs of passive components. It seems that only little guys like Espressif do their homework and put everything, up to RF stuff like baloon, into a chip. Big guys threw out yet another little monster. So, my sympathy is definitely with Espessif, if they will be friendly and open, I hope they'll have a chance to stand in IoT niche.

What would be an important move for them would be to open their ROM and static library code. I think we will be able (with some help) to have the Xtensa GCC compiler back to work, but these are their own IP.

Gotta love CPU zoo we're having here (throw in GPS with embedded SPARC for more fun: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/com ... _10hz_gps/).

I have 2 Navspark from their campaign, thse are fun to program! They extended the Arduino IDE and libs to port them on this CPU, which is quite impressive, even if you don't like the Arduino IDE

- Sun Sep 07, 2014 12:06 pm #311

Xtensa people are trying to support open source too. I think the build failures in gcc are just because they haven't been paying attention to the underlying code changes.

Let's cross fingers and hope they can fix the compiler soon!

- Sun Sep 07, 2014 12:32 pm #316

So, my sympathy is definitely with Espessif, if they will be friendly and open, I hope they'll have a chance to stand in IoT niche.

What would be an important move for them would be to open their ROM and static library code. I think we will be able (with some help) to have the Xtensa GCC compiler back to work, but these are their own IP.

Gotta love CPU zoo we're having here (throw in GPS with embedded SPARC for more fun: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/com ... _10hz_gps/).

I have 2 Navspark from their campaign, thse are fun to program! They extended the Arduino IDE and libs to port them on this CPU, which is quite impressive, even if you don't like the Arduino IDE

But note they (Navspark) don't provide complete source for their stuff either - it's actually the same situation as with ESP8266 SDK - there're static prebuilt libraries. So I don't hold my breath that Espressif will release complete source. And note again that Navspark actually promised that if the campaign will be successful and there will be sufficient requests, they will release reference materials about chip peripherals - surely they won't release info about they core IP - GPS stuff, but timers and standard interfaces like UART/SPI/I2C/etc. are trivial and low-risk disclosure. So, Squonk, if you have time, please knock on their side. And let's hope for good news from jonsmirl's communication with Espressif.

- Sun Sep 07, 2014 12:44 pm #317

But note they (Navspark) don't provide complete source for their stuff either - it's actually the same situation as with ESP8266 SDK - there're static prebuilt libraries. So I don't hold my breath that Espressif will release complete source. And note again that Navspark actually promised that if the campaign will be successful and there will be sufficient requests, they will release reference materials about chip peripherals - surely they won't release info about they core IP - GPS stuff, but timers and standard interfaces like UART/SPI/I2C/etc. are trivial and low-risk disclosure. So, Squonk, if you have time, please knock on their side. And let's hope for good news from jonsmirl's communication with Espressif.

I agree, we should only count on ourselves here... It is difficult to explain the FOSS advantages to Chinese company, as basically, copyright laws don't exist there and only physical device is considered important, software isn't, but it more a cultural thing than any bad intention.

What we can expect from Espressif is to provide more information regarding the chip, translate their documents into English. But no, I don't think they will open their code easily.