Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux for Home Electronics

Posted by michael on from the it's-just-better-with-the-penguin dept.

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 :^)."

9 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While the Sony's have lived in the modern world for awhile, and have gotten it, as well as being on both sides of it, Matsuhita electric is perhaps the most traditional and conservitive of Japanese companies. I have known these people (Matsushita) for much of my life, from some of their board members down. This is an organization so steeped in it's own traditions and dogma (yes, they really do have a "250 year" business plan, and never make fun of the founders light bulb socket :), with engineering departments so conservitivily organized, that for them to support open development of GPL software is really much like the Pope encouraging contraction!

  2. Sony has a Linux PVR on the market in Japan. by greensquare · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to this yahoo article Sony/Panasonic already have a PVR device on the market in Japan that is using Linux called Cocoon.

    It makes sense, cost, robustness, development time,....

    And this way they don't support MS, who is their competitor.

  3. PBX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It would be great if Panasonic developed drivers for its PBX boxes. Bayonne needs some support. They also developed a "small" call center solution that panasonic can't sell anymore. So why don't they release it as GPl and step back into the PBX market?

  4. Re:GPL friendly corporations ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Propaganda of this type has been popular only in the US. Read radical right wing Scotty, my favorite Linux hate speech.

  5. GPL is your friend, by vilbel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    if you compete against Microsoft. They hope that the total cost for the Linux platform will be less than licensing cost for a technical equal Windows platform. So they can save lots of money and don't found the Xbox. And Microsoft can't use any of the public code in their proprietary software, because it's GPL.

    But I do not believe, that they will release everything as GPL. New technologies like Super Audio CD (SACD) will, according to Philips and Sony, never ever appear in a PC. But releasing the driver for the drive and the filesystem could misled someone to play with the hardware and build some SACD-drives into a PC. So he could rip again the music.

  6. why do we care? by kr4jb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why do we care what OS runs inside of an embedded device? As long as it is reliable, I don't care if it runs QNX, VxWorks, OSE, RT Linux or any other (proven, real time) operating system.

    --
    // Alan Porter
  7. GPL motivation by gr8_phk · · Score: 2, Interesting
    They want to use existing code to save development costs. They realize what they are selling (hardware) and don't mind that they MUST release source for their derivative work (based on GPLed code), so they make the most of it and try to sound like they support OSS - which in some sense they actually do.

    I am amused at how a lot of companies don't realize what they are actually selling. This is a refreshing change.

    Paul

  8. RMS is not going to like this. by B.Stolk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    RMS may be mentioned in the press release,
    but he is still going to be upset (and
    quite rightly so):

    "Linux is well known as an operating system"

    Linux is a kernel.

    How hard is it to get important pieces of texts
    like press releases without blatant errors?

    Bram

    --
    http://www.stolk.org/tlctc
  9. Good, but not enough. by Goldenpi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Unusual for Sony to consider going open. Usually they make very propritary technology, such as Minidisc, Memory stick, Magicgate and SACD. This looks a lot like they dont care what they put in their boxes, as long as its cheap. Windows embedded isn't cheap, and it would probably mean adding more RAM too. Just because the systems run linux doesn't mean people will be able to mess with them easily. Its unlikely the appliances will have a convenient RS232 port to plug a terminal into, or a keyboard. People may be able to make some adjustments to the OS, but thats about it. As someone said earlier, even through some code will be released the all-important DRM technology will not. It wont be covered under the GPL as its not part of linux. Without the DRM code and keys the source code wouldn't be much good. You could rewrite sections of the code, recompile, and put it on the drive (or flash a chip for smaller appliances) but what then? The other appliances wouldn't trust it, if it has a hard drive it will be encrypted so the recompiled kernel wouldn't read it. Like most DRM systems it would be an all-or-nothing system. If you really wanted you might be able to recompile a DRM-free kernel and somehow get it to execute, but unless all the other appliances were also rewritten you wouldn't be able to view anything other then your move movies (unless someone breaks the DRM of course) Microsofts response should be quite intresting through. They only have two embedded OS platforms, windows CE and windows XP embedded. Both are a bit on the large side. MS is not going to remove all those fancy skins and 16-bit icons, so they might start marketing more agressivly. Assumeing the whole thing doesn't fade into obscurity, with a complete OS but noone makeing appliances using it, this is certinly good. But dont expect the Microsoft empire to collapse just yet. Like MS, Sony guards its propritary technology carefully. They arn't going to just give away source for playing SACDS or decryption codes for OpenMG.