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Linux for Home Electronics
ives writes "Matsushita (Panasonic) and Sony are going to develop a Linux platform for digital home electronic devices. The nice thing is that they want to release the jointly developed source code for this project under the GPL. The press release mentions open source, the GPL and even Richard Stallman :^)."
Looks like some companies have finally accepeted that GPL is not hostile to property and profit.
I'm already cringing at what I *know* is going to happen. They're going to release some stuff - exactly what they're obligated to - under the GPL. But other stuff - say DRM - will certainly NOT be under the GPL. Then there's going to be such a hoopla and whining in forums such as this one even though these companies have done exactly what they're obligated to. "They should give back to the community", etc, ad nauseum, and some people will be wondering why, if the open/free software implies some sort of larger obligation to a community, why these weren't written into the licenses.
If you want to sell the hardware, give the software away for free.
You hear that, Intel?
Software Wars
It makes good business sense to use GPL-ed software when you want to devise a new product.
1. Low cost or no cost.
2. If you give geeks a chance to play with it, they can start to tell regular people how it works, why they should get it, etc.
3. Since most "regular" people don't care or don't want to know why it works the way it does, if the people who care why it works (geeks), show others that it just works, others will be inclined to buy that product.
The moral: Most people will buy something if it simply works. Sony and Panasonic are letting us make sure it works before they mass-release.
Great strategy for the companies and I get to fullfil my hacker tendancies!
I'm a hamker. Hams, hackers, same ethos, different medium. == 73 de KB0STG
As part of a recent acquisition my company made, I had to describe the IP included in the deal. We spent quite a bit of time defining what software meant. In this case, it included everything from java, c, and c++ source (with documentation) to libraries the company previously purchased for specific pieces of hardware. I looked around for a good definition, but discovered that most were pretty bad.
Your monitor is staring at you.
>It is a shame Be never open sourced BeOS before they went out of business and left that sort of thing up to the investors. Sony and Matsushita would be much better off with BeOS than Linux for any media related activities.
:-)
Yeah yeah, to borrow a page from the Amiga community.
Sorry, open sourcing BeOS would do NOTHING at this point.
All of the tough questions that apply to Linux-based appliances, also apply to BeOS. You know, those things you have to justify to PHB's and also investors like profit, roadmap, not dilluting your copyrights and patents, etc. Who is going to maintain and extend BeOS to other hardware, as Linux has done?
Open sourcing an OS or environment is no magic pixie dust. I don't think there's enough interest in Be to extend it to odd CPU's, odd audio and video drivers. Be tried positioning itself as a "multimedia" OS, but good luck finding drivers to ALLOW that multimedia.
Linux is MUCH better supported (OSS or not) than BeOS, and remember Linux is just an infant in this arena.
I remember a few years ago, Digital (was it Caldera?) open sourced their version of Digital GEM, the very-thin graphical desktop which was briefly popular on the PC, before Windows. It's open sourced, fits on a floppy, but even with active development it's not up to par with the Atari ST fork of GEM, discontinued about 10 years ago. (The developers of the now OSS version of GEM were hoping to make it a lightweight GUI for cell phones and PDA's).
It's now too late for any new platforms unless there are TRULY new ideas. The way I see it, you have Open Source and you have non-open source Microsoft. Linux, BSD, etc doesn't matter it's the toolchain that is the platform - not the kernel.
The oddball here is Apple Mac OS X. While they are proprietary, the toolchain is (or can be) largely the same as open source. For the position Apple was/is in, they made the wise choice.
Companies who want a "multimedia OS" but DON'T want Linux or Microsoft, I could see an oppurtunity here for Apple (if they don't go after the appliance market all themselves, as they seem to be consiering).
So, why should we? My job is to design, implement, and administer networks for customers. Some of these are quite large networks and some are small but they all have one thing in common: in order to take care of them I have to understand the way all the components work. Ahhh.... I just heard a penny drop.
I spec Cisco routers and switches because I understand how they work and know that they will do the job. The customer doesn't have to pay me to spend time figuring out how to fix a problem; once I know what the problem is the chances are I can put a fix in quickly. Often without leaving my office! This saves the client money and, not coincidentally, makes me look good.
If Sony puts Linux into a device then I already have a better chance at understanding how to make that device work than if some engineer had designed his (or her) own idea for a cool command set.
And because Sony now doesn't have to put all that extra money into designing the OS, that means that their products will cost less. I can put their products into a network and save money on both ends: the procurement end and the administration end. This makes Cisco scramble to lower prices to keep market share. So even if we don't use Linux devices, the costs for networks goes down just because these devices are out there.
In short, I care what the underlying OS is on these devices because I don't have to learn a zillion different commands for the same things and I can, therefore, do my job quicker and more efficiently. You should care because when you get a job at a company you can hire me to do your network and look good when we save you money.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I got so carried away with my own rhetoric that I neglected to tie it in to home electronics so here goes:
:)
Thirty years ago anyone who understood electronics theory and vacuum tubes could fix any home electronic device. Simply understanding how electronic circuits worked meant that a tech could move from one device to another. And manufacturers didn't have to design a new theory for each device, they just wired up the vacuum tubes in new ways which were still understandable. All a tech had to do was look at the schematic diagram, apply a few standard tools (oscilloscope, VTVM, signal injector, etc.) and he (or she) could make it work.
So if Sony uses Linux in its latest widget and you understand Linux, you'll understand how your widget works and how to get the most out of your widget. Plus, since Sony didn't have to design a brand new widget-operating-system, you will either be able to buy it cheaper than the Samsung widget or it will do more... or both. And if your widget breaks you won't have to buy a new one, you can just flash the bios and make it just like new.
So putting widely known operating systems into devices saves money for both the manufacturer and the consumer. This makes us all happier and a few of us wealthier. If you learn Linux, and Linux is the OS they put in all these devices, you have a better chance of joining that few.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
I don't. I care about whether it is open. Do it use free, open standards, protocols, etc.? That's what is important. What I'm talking about is http://sincerechoice.org/.
Doesn't it seem a little ironic for a card-carrying RIAA member to be embracing Open Source/GPL for their products? I wonder if they'll try to make some kind of modification or licensing deal to screw Panasonic and the rest of the world from using this embedded system.
Are there only two choices? Good or evil?
Perhaps we techno-geeks need to stop thinking about everything in the real world in binary terms.
The world is an analog place, not a digital one.
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What we really need is much better tools and hardware. One really geat beginning to that need just was released - Qplus Target Builder. This is the first decent open source embedded toolkit. Check it out - soon to be moving to sourceforge.
But then you also need some good hardware and its nearly impossible for the hobbyist to figure out what is decent and what is drek in all the offerings out there. Then you look at the prices and they are out of control. Has anyone found a good source of fanless embedded hardware that does not cost over $500 for a $100 piece of hw? Send me mail if you have.
If the designer decides to use Linux, it implies something about their values, which further implies that you will have fewer interoperability problems. The implications can be wrong, of course: it's just a very general trend.
You aren't cringing enough. They don't need to keep DRM code closed source. They will simply design the system so it won't run unsigned code. If you make one tiny improvement to the code and recompile, it won't work. You will have no choice but to use Sony/Panasonic code.
If you find a security hole, you will have to wait for the vendor to fix it. If you want to create software for the system, you will have to get the vendor's permission. In essense, it defeats the whole point of Open Source (putting you control, letting you improve the system, letting you fix the bugs, etc.).
Of course I'm just speculating. It's possible they'll release the system without DRM, but coming from Sony, I seriously doubt it.
So putting widely known operating systems into devices saves money for both the manufacturer and the consumer.
Assuming, of course, said operating system can perform the job effectively and efficiently. Thanks to our superb kernel hackers, linux is quite scalable. It works good both on the embedded scale and the supercomputer scale. But one can imagine situations where linux would not be the best solution. In fact, until recently linux wasn't very scalable at all and it would have been a terrible idea to try and use it in embedded devices, even if it IS familiar to most geeks.
Remember Windows CE? I actually think it is still around, but when it first came out it was vastly inferior to PalmOS. Windows was designed to work on a desktop, not in an embedded device. It didn't matter that it was an interface that was already familiar to a lot of people. It wasn't a good tool for the job.