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Hardware Companies Team Up To Fight Mobile Linux Fragmentation

Posted by Soulskill on from the isn't-that-cheating dept.

Nunavut writes with news that a number of hardware companies have banded together to battle the fragmentation of the mobile Linux market. ARM, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments are forming Linaro, a nonprofit organization that plans to focus on "low-level software around the Linux kernel that touches the silicon, key pieces of middleware that enable new markets, and tools that help the developer write and debug code." "Linaro's chief goal is to reduce the time that it takes to bring a new ARM-powered product to market with Linux. This effort is largely neutral with respect to what software environment and components individual vendors choose to run in user space. Linaro will not compete with existing platforms such as MeeGo and Android. Instead, it will attempt to improve the shared underlying software components that allow those platforms and others to run on ARM SoCs. In principle, this could actually reduce fragmentation at the lower levels of the Linux stack."

12 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. if they'll fail by underqualified · · Score: 3, Insightful

    they'll be yet another fragment

    1. Re:if they'll fail by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes. This is about "standardizing the Darwin part" of an iPhone or an iPad.

      If this leads to Android or Ubuntu being able to readily run on an iPad and other similar SoCs then I believe they will have set out what they wanted to achieve.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    2. Re:if they'll fail by JohnBailey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      These days, the underlying OS doesn't matter, even when it comes to mobile devices. That's not where the interesting or critical development is happening. What matters these days is the higher-level APIs. Those are what mobile applications use, with very few mobile apps actually needing to care about the underlying OS.

      Absolutely.. The really important bit is the place where they hay is stored for the unicorns. Apple user right?

      --
      It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
  2. Good idea - but these orgs move very slowly by Foredecker · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've participated in a few industry wide organizations like this. They can be somewhat effective, but even then, they move very, very slowly.

    --
    Jibe!
  3. Re:Biggest issue they face... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What in god's name are you blathering about? This is a non profit organization that intends to deal with low level hardware libraries. It has nothing to do with "apps" and they have no intention of shipping a product. All of this is right in the summary.

  4. Re:Biggest issue they face... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Congrats!

    You've won the coveted "You Retard!" slashdot community award.

    Do you have any thing to say about this prestigious win?

  5. Re:Uh oh by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Funny

    enable new markets

    This probably will not go well.

    Oh, that one is easy. Just go to the configuration, and check the box at "enable new markets". Alternatively you can also do it by hand with
    echo 1 > /proc/market/new/enabled

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  6. Summary by bcmm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Very good idea. Code reuse is always good. However, one minor point about the summary: fat chance of Android either helping or being helped by this - AFAIK, they've already messed up their Linux-derived kernel to the point where you can't assume that modules from actual Linux will work with it.

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
  7. Not necessarily by Kupfernigk · · Score: 4, Interesting
    To quote a BSi project manager I once used to work with, there are 2 sorts of standards initiative - those intended to get something done, which can be very fast, and those intended to hold up standardisation while the prime mover gains market share. Since this is intended to create a standard quicker than Windows 7 whatever edition can gain traction, it could all happen very fast.

    I once had the good fortune to work on a project where the standard proceeded so much faster than capability that for 6 months we were the world's only supplier of a standards-compliant product, though a small one. Believe me, it was worth the effort.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  8. Re:It's the apps, stupid by aero6dof · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the membership and their statements, it actually sounds like they might be working on integrating/standardizing the access to underlying hardware. Most of those manufacturers make ARM chips with various added peripherals. It would certainly save time if I could grab a Linux distro that was everything below the UI level without having to spend time integrating the low level chip libraries to access the custom hardware functions in the chip.

  9. Re:Direct response to Meego by dwater · · Score: 3, Insightful

    won't this also help meego?

    --
    Max.
  10. That's why I'm rooting for MeeGo by Qubit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I gotta hand it to the MeeGo folks. Their project has goals like

    1) Keep it FOSS. All of it (in the core distro)
    2) Upstream code whenever possible

    Even if you don't use it as a mobile OS, the work being done on it by Intel, Nokia, etc... is going to benefit pretty much every Linux-derived distro out there.

    If Linaro wants to join the party and throw time/money at improving Linux-y software running on ARM chips, that sounds pretty darn good to me!

    --

    coding is life /* the rest is */