Hi. The SG2002 looks like a potentially good hardware platform to dev on however I’m unable to find an open source SDK for it. Everything github relevant to the hardware is proprietary/copyright/all-rights-reserved (presumably the main reason why nobody is using it and be it underrated despite its great potential?).
Has anyone cared to open source a SDK for it yet, or this needs to be done from scratch?
I’d like to play around with it for sure, and I have CV1800B, and SG2000, and SG2002, but I seriously lack expertise, lol.
Wow, quite a significant inventory on standby you got there, sorry to hear that. So I gather from your situation that nobody reverse engineered the silicon and there are no GPL/BSD or MIT viable SDK solutions for the communities?
Quite frankly it’s hard to believe, let alone understand why Sophgo (and Milk-V for the same matter) made themselves completely irrelevant by not providing open source toolkits for such a potentially good contender. Arguably the main reason for the complete lack of forks and community engagement. Just pure negligence/ignorance, malice, or simply I don’t-want-to-sell-SOCs? What exactly went wrong??
Ps. we’re looking at consolidating our i.MX fam of silicon. Those SG200x looked appealing but completely licenseless for some paranormal reason (first time we see this in 18+ years in the embed/vendors!).
Right. Interestingly we just found the hw vendor’s repo (github/sophgo/sophpi/) however this SDK is also marked “read-only/copyright/all-rights-reserved”. Same situation as all the Milk-V repos; z e r o top level LICENSE/COPYING md, nothing at all, there is just no way for anyone to legally download this SDK without committing blatant corporate theft. Can only look at it…
No wonder the sophgo silicon aren’t used by anyone. How to solve this problem?! (omg!)
if they put in on a public webserver it’s very well in your right to download it, too. they make that choice when they put it there. can you republish it, etc., that’s different questions.
i would assume it’s more a matter of them not knowing what they need to publish for everything to be done proper or failing to do it for some other reason.
I think if you’re more in a professional setting yourself, best chance/choice would be to go via RISC-V international since they have regular scheduled meetings and calls where you could express concern and they would know who to talk to at sophgo and milk-v. they have the contacts already and are also supposed to support their vendor members.
No, correction, on a legal stance you and I are NOT allowed to download/use/modify their code (github’s TOC is clear about that). None of it (read-only/copyright). Both the Milk-V & Sophgo’s repos - all lacking the minimal licensing requirement to legally allow for that. And so if you’ve downloaded their code locally, used, or modified it you are legally liable/at a serious risk.
On the ‘forking’, that act is a privilege granted by the platform’s rules, not by copyright law. However, that fork is still subject to the original copyright/read-only legal commitment.
All in all, their repositories are close to useless. Nobody (in their right mind anyway) would stop and even look at it - straight up PASS & IGNORE rather. Presumably this is pure ignorance and negligence from Milk-V/Sophgo (← my suspicion). The other reason some deliberately omit clear legal rights is malice (there are many who does this). I’d like to think that they aren’t omitting this maliciously, and just clueless and ignorant on the matter rather.
This corporation must have lost several million of $ in sales due to this impediment. I said that before and I’ll say it again; the SG200x fam (among others) are great contenders, potential rivals so to speak. The reason why it’s not being used, considered, nor even looked at internationally, is precisely because of their negligent (ignorant?) act of non-compliance.
In short; a repo marked read-only as the Milk-V and Sophgo are “PASS & IGNORE” for everyone in the industry. That’s how it has been in the industry for the last 18+ years I’ve contributed too and I don’t see any of that changing anytime soon.
They need and should add a LIC asap (minimal MIT at least). Embarrassing enough as-is quite frankly….
If you’re new to the Internet, embed and/or OSS, here’s a clear distinction between Read-Only (a.k.a. useless) and Legal (safe/proper) repositories. Just to ensure everybody understand how it’s been working for the last 20 years (can’t believe I had to take out my crayons).
All what’s missing to Milk-V & Sophgo’s repos are crystal clear LICENSES (tailored as they want it to be, that’s their call). That way myself and others can legally download/test/eval without committing blatant corporate theft. Get it?!
Buddy can you share your opensource SDK on SG2000 please
