

Amazon kindle source code - sundar22in
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200203720

======
wheels
I thought it was kind of neat to that a library I'd written was one of the 45
included. I was kind of curious to see what they'd changed, but it ended up
being a little boring:

<https://gist.github.com/1289293>

It's a library for reading / writing audio meta data (tags) and they basically
just removed support for several formats. What's perhaps more interesting is
what they didn't remove: I don't have a Kindle, but from the code this would
seem to imply that it supports Ogg Vorbis and FLAC in some capacity.

Also noted that they're using a version from early 2008, even though there
have been 5 more recent releases since.

Edit: I also went back and grabbed the very first Kindle release, which
contained only 22 packages (TagLib still being one of them), and there they
used an even older version (meaning they do at least sometimes grab newer
versions of the libs).

~~~
TeMPOraL
> I don't have a Kindle, but from the code this would seem to imply that it
> supports Ogg Vorbis and FLAC in some capacity.

Haven't tried with .ogg and .flac, but new Kindles have capacity to play .mp3
files. It's more of an experiment from on their part, and the player supports
only _play_ and _pause_ operations.

~~~
chopsueyar
I have the 1st gen Kindle and it always had the capability to play mp3s, as
well as a removable memory card slot.

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markbao
Like Palm's WebOS open source releases [0], this is the code of the
modifications they made to open-source projects, some of which they are
supposed to release under GPL.

The title should be updated to reflect this.

[0]: <http://opensource.palm.com/packages.html>

~~~
nikcub
This is why, in my opinion, having the GPL force code sharing may sound nice
in theory, but in practice it isn't very interesting.

Amazon are just providing the bare essentials, there is no development
community here, no way for them to take back any changes, no user or developer
feedback, no documentation, build instructions, etc. - just a site that reads
and looks like a legal obligation (and it is in the legal section of the
Kindle docs).

Compare this to Webkit - where there is no requirement to share code, but you
have a number of companies that have setup very successful developer
communities around the code base and a lot of products taking advantage of the
work with both the rendering engine and the Javascript interpreters.

You can require somebody to release code, but you can't force them to actively
support it.

~~~
Maakuth
The point (of GPL) is not that new community has to form around this released
source, nor that the consumers having bought devices using GPL software would
be able to recreate them with their own software modifications. The point is
that for example Linux developers get to utilize possibly useful modifications
made by product vendors, say bug fixes.

~~~
sorbits
> _The point is […] utilize possibly useful modifications […]_

The ideology which spawned the GPL is that systems should be open. When a
consumer buys something like the Kindle, he or she should be able to make
changes to the system, i.e. rebuild a modified version of the OS and use that
instead of Amazon’s original version.

The GPL is an ingenious way to transform the world of closed software to one
where instead it is open, case in point being the Kindle, where Amazon decided
to build on source already out there, and due to the license (GPL) in turn has
to make their device more open than had they e.g. used BSD licensed software.

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skeletonjelly
For some reason I thought it would be the source code for the reader component
but it looks like it's just conforming to the GPL license requirements for
things they've modified.

Kindle_src_3.2.1_576290015.tar.gz contains: <http://pastie.org/2699524>

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dfc
Why did this get upvoted so many times? It has been available for years now.

I'm afarid to say that I think people upvoted this without even reading the
link. I'd bet that 200+ people who voted for this thought it was the source to
amazon's proprietary components. Its not, its gpl'ed code that has been
available for as long as amazon has sold the kindle.

~~~
pbreit
I'm not aware of any rules or customs around voting submissions based on
publish date. I suspect the current interest is driven by the recent release
of the Kindle Fire as well as questions about Amazon's duty to publish changes
of certain licensed code.

~~~
dfc
What questions are there related to changes to GPLd code?

I don't think a 3 or 4 year old link is neccessarily newsworthy but you are
right there is no rule against old content being relevant. That being said my
real complaint is who cares? Linksys, Apple, Brother Printing; all these
companies publish their mods to GPLd code. But people did not upvote this
because they were interested in GPL mods they upvoted it because they assumed
it was something else entirely and never read the link...

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ctz
Unfortunately, still no SDK and no sign of movement. This is really sad, as
I'd love access to the Kindle's market.

~~~
sundar22in
I registered for an SDK and i hope i get it soon. It does not look like its
coming.

~~~
alimoeeny
I registered ages ago and didn't even received an email back!

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jasiek
For a split second there I understood that as "Kindle SDK being released
today".

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jrmg
I'm really surprised to see so much GPL and LGPLed code in here. Doesn't the
license require that, in addition to having the source code, that it be
possible for the user be able to re-compile and re-link the binaries? Isn't
this impossible with the Kindle hardware?

~~~
abrahamsen
The GPLv3 tries to enforce that, earlier versions failed to do so.

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Achshar
yup, they have to release the code due to the license..

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smallegan
Will the Fire be on here when it launches?

~~~
Maakuth
Mostly no, I think, because most of Android source code is licensed under
Apache license, so they don't need to publish their modifications.

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mih
Does this mean the community can finally add support to epub books?

~~~
sliverstorm
The community has had that option ever since the Kindle v1. Amazon has honored
the license ever since they launched.

