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Electronic Giants Form CE Linux Forum
Adam Wern writes "Matsushita Electric Industrial, Sony Corporation, Hitachi, NEC Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Corporation, and Toshiba Corporation, today announced the establishment of the CE Linux Forum. CELF will discuss and formalize requirements for extensions to Linux to meet the needs of CE products such as audio/visual products and cellular phones, etc. CELF will publish such requirements and will accept and evaluate open source solutions that support to meet the published requirements. CELF will also promote broad usage of Linux for CE products. IBM, an industry leader in Linux solutions and supporter of open standards ecosystems, is pursuing membership and plans to be an active participant in the CELF."
Since most CE apps (IE mobile phones) are coded with J2ME, now-a-days, simply adding J2ME into this new Linux extension would mean easy portability of already existing applications.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The CE Linux Forum site was built with Frontpage 5.0 and hosted on IIS. Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain, Dorothy.
Unfortunately, the demands of content providers (including Sony) for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) might make openness and iteroperability disappear. If there is a common platform for DRM, the devices are more likely to play well together than if everyone chooses a different OS and DRM.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
there have been little skirmishes between hardware makers and MS... the horrible cellphone stuff, the cable-box stuff...
but this... this is one of two things..
i hope its what i said - tht its a coup for the hardware makers to take back their devices... i mean, they can see the friggen code.. and if its not working for them, they can fix it.
but what i fear this may be is simply $15 of domain registration and 15 minutes of web development geared to scare MS into complying with their demands to lower Windows CE licensing (hell, Windows itself) and CE development tool licensing fees.
i'll be optimistic.. i say its really a coup and everyone in the WINCE dept in Redmond is getting a Holloween letter today about how they need to do whatever it takes, including dumping, to get back these people as customers.
gone are the days of 5 buttons and no UI to run CE devices.. the iPod has totally convinced everyone of that. These hardware makers need some way to control their products.. and this is really the best way to do it.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
This is the true spirit of linux.
Given the magnitude of the invoilved companies, I think this is a great step toward linux. Of the companies listed I own atleast one product from each and think a standardized front end to a broad range of devices is a wonderful idea.
Given the fact that almost every CE device has a frontend nowadays, it would be great if these guys pooled thier resources and created a standardized UI/Widget set that was highly portable and robust enough to handle the demands that these devices would require.
My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
You said
but then you also said
If your device is capable of running Linux, it's capable of controlling a USB port. Why, then, wouldn't USB be a useful connection type?
Geeeeeeee, imagine that. Using the best tool for each job. Solaris on the web server, a few linux powered handhelds, BSD firewalls, a whole slough of Windows desktops for the accountants... Sounds like somone was smart enough to go beyond single OS zealotry.
The world of computers isn't black and white.
- I love animals. I try to eat at least one a day.
So what? They're not trying to promote a moral standard, they're just trying to encourage cheap production of useful software. They're having OSS developers do some of the work, to save cost.
And I say, go for it! Anything to get more attention to the benefits of Open Source. Benefits don't have to be limited to the end-user, you know...
What's this Submit thingy do?
It's a replay of the Handset OS battle. The makers of consumer devices do not want to be PC'ed by Microsoft.
There is no margins in PC's and it's impossible to truely innovate as the infrastructure is pretty much owned by MS/Windows. The handset makers like Nokia etc. realized this early and they conseqently shun MS regardless of the quality / price of CE.
An opensource OS standard for consumer products are just what they want since no one controls the direction of the OS. Everyone can innovate and get a first mover advantage and at the same time make a credible case to the consumer that what they offer will not be a dead-end.
Help fight continental drift.
I suspect they're playing the game really smart by having OSS developers do some of the work. They publish their specs, and we'll do the work for free. I say go for it! It's a great way to expose additional benefits of using Open Source.
What's this Submit thingy do?
If you give away your software you can't really think of it as your property anymore, i.e. Linux doesn't belong to hackers. Regardless, "general hackers" aren't electronics manufacturers. So why should general hackers dictate what the standards and requirements for Linux on this kind of device is? This organization isn't meant to get input from the hackers, it's meant to make specifications that the coders can choose to implement or not implement.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
Maybe he just RTFA.
They are going to "Extend Linux." That means Open. WTF would they doing to do otherwise? Distribute pre-compiled modules for every architecture? Give me a break. Companies don't develop proprietary stuff in groups of eight. The whole point is openess.. they want interoperability with each others' products.
From the frontpage:
The CELF is a place to come and discuss various issues that are of particular importance to the CE industry. Through an open process, the CELF members will clarify and codify certain requirements to be addressed by the open source community. Thereafter, the CELF will evaluate any open source submissions as to their effectiveness and responsiveness to the requirements. Open source submissions accepted by the CELF Architecture Group and Steering Committee will be incorporated into the CELF source tree, which itself is open to the public.
Through this open process, the CELF intends to leverage the benefits of the open source community and process to maximize the re-use of common solutions to common problems and thereby create a foundation on which the CELF members and others can build compelling networked products. We welcome you to join the CELF and work with us to realize an open platform for compelling new consumer electronics products.
The unofficial
It looks like they're interested in trimming the fat from the kernel to get something better suited to CE devices. In other words, have one tree where all the work that has to be done gets done, reducing the duplication of effort that they have today.
Sure, doing this will in fact "create a foundation on which the CELF members and others can build compelling network products.", but they aren't saying anything about building compelling network products that interoperate with other compelling network products produced by a 3rd party (or even members of The Forum).