Today the Raspberry Foundation has announced that the graphics code for the $35 Raspberry Pi mini PC is now available as open source code. With the VideoCore driver code, which runs on the ARM, being released under a FOSS license (3-Clause BSD), this marks a significant milestone in the world of open-source hardware.
This means that the BCM2835 used in the Raspberry Pi is the very first ARM-based multimedia SoC with vendor-provided fully open-source drivers, rather than drivers which have been created or reverse-engineered by developers. This is a major step forward for the open-source community, as it allows developers to have full access to the hardware capabilities of the Raspberry Pi, enabling them to create more optimized and efficient software.
Implications for Developers and Enthusiasts
The open-sourcing of the graphics code has several important implications. For developers, it means that they can now write software that takes full advantage of the Raspberry Pi’s hardware capabilities without having to rely on proprietary drivers. This can lead to better performance and more features in applications that use the Raspberry Pi’s graphics capabilities.
For enthusiasts and hobbyists, this opens up new possibilities for projects and experiments. For example, someone could create a custom operating system that is optimized for the Raspberry Pi’s hardware, or develop new applications that make use of the hardware-accelerated graphics. The possibilities are endless, and the open-source community is sure to come up with many innovative uses for this new capability.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can add a graphics card and increase the power of your Pi mini PC, check out the currently supported Raspberry Pi GPU hardware.
Broader Impact on the Open-Source Ecosystem
The Raspberry Foundation explains: “The open sourcing of the userland libraries is of course going to be massively helpful to those of you who have been either actively porting or wanting to use alternate operating systems on the Raspberry Pi. We’ve been excitedly following the progress of FreeBSD, NetBSD, Plan9, RISC OS, Haiku, and others. All these projects could now potentially port these libraries and make use of the full hardware-accelerated graphics facilities of the Raspberry Pi.”
This statement highlights the broader impact that this move will have on the open-source ecosystem. By making the graphics code available, the Raspberry Foundation is enabling a wide range of operating systems to take full advantage of the Raspberry Pi’s hardware. This can lead to more diversity and innovation in the software that is available for the Raspberry Pi, as developers from different projects can now collaborate and share their work more easily.
The Raspberry Pi graphic source code is now available to download via Github. For more information, jump over to the website.
The release of the Raspberry Pi graphics code as open-source is a significant development that will benefit developers, enthusiasts, and the broader open-source community. It opens up new possibilities for innovation and collaboration, and we can expect to see many exciting new projects and applications emerge as a result. Whether you are a developer looking to create optimized software, or an enthusiast looking to experiment with new projects, this is an exciting time to be involved with the Raspberry Pi.
Source: Liliputing
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