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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."
So punny it hurts :-)
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
It's CRLF, not CELF.
Oh wait.....
SCO announced its intention to sue Matsushita Electric Industrial, Sony Corporation, Hitachi, NEC Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Corporation, and Toshiba Corporation for even thinking about using Linux.
All Your Memory Are Belong To Java
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!
"CELF" is easier to pronounce than "CEGnu/LF"...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Electronic giants? They're going to enslave us all! Run, run everybody!
Oh, not real giants? Oh OK. Nevermind.
Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
I like this CE Linux idea. Personally, I'm still waiting for a new alternative to the venerable RS-232. USB can't do it since it requires a computer, and Firewire is too expensive still. And yeah, there's all manner of proprietary connections out there, but you have to have a home theater that's made up entirely of one brand (and that really sucks).
Having a Linux CE (not to be confused with Windows CE =) to work with consumer electronics might be a good idea. So that if my DVD player runs Linux, my TIVO runs Linux, and my TV set runs Linux, I can automate recordings, get them to turn each other on, and that kinda stuff.
Since Linux is (relatively) free, it shouldn't take it forever to "trickle-down" into consumer-grade stuff. With a little luck, RS-232 device control will go the way of the dodo (/me kicks his old n busted Sony VTR).
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
...that they're using FrontPage to make a website promoting Linux...
-Kardax
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.
This just in from a SCO representative "NO NO NO!!! Pay US US US!!!" who was then given a passifier and a five minute time out.
An LinuxCE SpokeDroid is quoted as responding with "Beep Boop Bobble
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
actually, a company i used to work for created linux-based CE devices. however, the userland was entirely BSD derived (mostly in crunched binaries) and proprietary closed source software. as with most other CE's, we found little use for the GNU tools in the device itself (obviously we used the gnu development toolchain).
every once in a while, some jackass tried to tell us that we're not using "linux", we're using "GNU/Linux". we'd correct him, we use "BSD/Linux".
Leave it to the GNU/OSS/GPL guys to give you an acronym without spelling it out first.
:)
"The CE Linux Forum (CELF)..."
They tried describing it but only got there halfway
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.
And in other industry news, Microsoft announced that they were replacing all the upper management for their Faithful User Department. The FUD team has often been criticised by high-ranking management for failing to produce the degree of loyalty desired in users. The high profile defections in Germany and Spain reportedly led to a confrontational meeting and a mass firing.
I hope Motorola joins in, as well. Then there's the Embedded Linux Consortium. I do hope they consolidate their resources.
On a different note, any news on the Motorola A760?
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?
There are questions that should be asked that I haven't seen being asked yet...
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
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?
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).
I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing, but Here are the bylaws of the orginization.
I've been using WinCE on several projects for about two years and haven't seen any footprint information on the latest flavors of embedded Linux. If anyone can spare a moment, could they let me know a ballpark estimate of the RAM and flash footprints of each of these configurations:
- A minimal, headless Linux embedded configuration.
- A headless configuration with basic TCP/IP functionality (FTP, telnet, ping, etc).
- Headless configuration with basic TCP/IP and a simple web server (so I might post config or maintenence data about the target that way).
- TCP/IP configuration with a minimal VGA/SVGA video dislay.
- Same config but with web browsing capability.
Again, no need for exact numbers - just ballpark estimates or a pointer to a site that might have this info. I have no immediate needs for this - we're actually very happy with WinCE. I'm just curious for any future needs. Thanks."Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
IBM, an industry leader in [choose an OS] solutions and supporter of [choose a movement], is pursuing membership and plans to be an active participant in the [choose a group].
Speaking on behalf of the Forum, (I'm co-Chair of the Architecture Group) I can say that forking is not our intention. It is the strong desire of the member companies to keep synchronized (to about the same degree current popular Linux distros keep synchronized) with the kernel.org tree.
This article has additional information, including that the forum plans to release some source by the end of summer.