closed source binaries - "Arduino_MCHPTouch" in the arduino IDE?

[phillip torrone]

hi hi arduino developer list, 

we emailed the arduino team directly and did not hear back, so we're going to send to the list. it looks like there are closed-source libraries are going to be part of/indexed by/included in the arduino library manager by arduino.

we do not care if it is open or closed source. it would be good for community (and for us as contributors) to know if closed-source libraries are going to be part of/indexed by/included in the arduino library manager by arduino, as historically this was not permitted.

we'll do a post on our blog later in the week based on the information we can get.

thanks,

pt and limor

Begin forwarded message:

From: phillip torrone <p...@adafruit.com>

Date: June 20, 2021 at 11:18:45 PM EDT

hi folks, 

there is a new library was added from Arduino's official repo called Arduino_MCHPTouch (https://github.com/arduino-libraries/Arduino_MCHPTouch) and it appears to be the same as the QTouch library that you said that Arduino had accidentally added to the library manager. however, now it is renamed and re-added? we're checking to see if this was also accidental or if the Arduino IDE/library policy about closed source binaries (https://github.com/arduino-libraries/Arduino_MCHPTouch/tree/master/src/cortex-m0plus) in libraries has been relaxed OR if the source code for the MCHPtouch binary blob is available. 

figured we'd send this over to you before we send it to the developer list and ask.

we do not care if it is open or closed source. it would be good for community (and for us as contributors) to know if closed-source libraries are going to be part of/indexed by/included in the arduino library manager by arduino.

thanks,

pt and limor

[phillip torrone]

post is live:
https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/06/28/closed-source-libraries-in-the-arduino-library-manager/

special thanks to alessandro ranellucci, head of maker business, open source & community at arduino for getting back to us.

cheers,
pt and limor

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[William Westfield]

the QTouch library

I’m sure that Adafruit is aware that the Atmel/Microchip QTouch technology and library is held annoying closely; the libraries are available in binary only regardless of development environment, and even if there is hardware support in a chip, the documentation is limited to essentially:

In order to access the PTC, the user must use the Atmel Start QTouch® Configurator to configure and link the QTouch Library firmware with the application software.

But I thought it was worth mentioning explicitly, for everyone else.  (Even if it’s not directly related to the overall question of binary-only libraries in general.)

BillW/WestfW

[phillip torrone]

we reverse-engineered the samd21's qtouch peripheral to create
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_FreeTouch

which is used in arduino and circuitpython successfully, for folks who do not want to use a closed source binary to access the hardware they own.

cheers,
pt and limor

[William Westfield]

we reverse-engineered the samd21's qtouch peripheral to create 
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_FreeTouch 

Has that had any of the “advanced” QTouch SW library features built on top of it yet (sliders, wheels, etc)?

BillW/WestfW

[phillip torrone]

> On Jun 29, 2021, at 4:26 PM, 'William Westfield' via Developers <devel...@arduino.cc> wrote:
> Has that had any of the “advanced” QTouch SW library features built on top of it yet (sliders, wheels, etc)?

sliders and wheels can be implemented as linearly interpolated & filtered measurements of multiple adjacent pad readings - it isn't hardware or register dependent. (that's why it's closed source - it isn't the hardware interface that is secret, it's the filtering implementation. perhaps they don't want that algorithm used on any other chip that has capacitive touch capabilities.)

someone may have done that implementation, we don't know of it - and we're happy to take a contribution :)

cheers,
pt and limor

[phillip torrone]

hi folks,

another question came up, so we got an answer directly from arduino, thank you again alessandro. this is regarding the status of open-source or not for some of the arduino boards)...

https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/07/07/arduino-pro-hardware-is-not-open-source-hardware/

cheers,
pt