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TurboLinux Businesses

Linux Announcement from Sony, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu 88

Posted by Hemos from the big-news-for-japan-linux dept.
BJH writes: "This hit the newspapers in Japan this morning - Sony, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu, Hitachi and Mitsubishi (basically the entire electronics industry in Japan, with the notable exception of Matsushita) will be setting up the "Japan Embedded Linux Consortium" in cooperation with TurboLinux and a whole bunch of other groups to produce a version of Linux suitable for use as an embedded OS for home electronics, mobile phones, cars, industrial machinery - in fact, just about anything with a CPU. Here's a Nikkei article in Japanese (no login needed) and another one here in English (you'll need to log in for this one). This looks like it's going to be big - hold onto your hats, guys..." If anyone has found an English URL that doesn't require a login, please post it below.
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Linux Announcement from Sony, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu More

Linux Announcement from Sony, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu

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  • I could run cron jobs to warm up the car in the morning. Or to flash secret messages at certain times.
  • If they can do this why in the h-e-double-hockeys-sticks can't they stand togather against that evil company Rambus? But then again maybe this is just the first step in getting them to do just that. Ya never know.

    m3th

    (see quote on /.)

  • Linux's networking features etc. make a great deal of sense to this.

    As does PalmOS, QNX, EPOC, blah, blah, blah..

    I'm waiting to see how big the RTKernel is and what its requirements are before I make a final judgement, but it has to be small and light or you're just wasting your time.

  • Windows asks you to confirm you wanted to do it *nix does not.
  • You know, theres another OS out there right now that was designed for this very job. It's small, it's stable, it's designed for an embedded system. It has all the applications you list. It's called PalmOS (Or even WinCE if you so wish)

    Right tool for the job, and all that.
  • Why bog down the processor with a full embedded operating system? I don't understand this. I design embedded systems for a living and I'd say a full 90% of the systems out there have absolutely no need for a full (or even stripped down) Linux (or anything else) kernel. Cellphones?! gimme a break! Because the next generation of these devices will be full blown Internet Capable, computing devices. With 300K+ comms to and from these things and the need to recoup $billions in investments some power and flexibility will be needed.
  • Now I can have my speech recognizer program listen to what the person on the other end is saying, translate it with the babelfish, and speak it out the ear-piece, while rendering animated 3-D flythroughs of the Mandelbrot set and re-compiling my kernel, at the same time! (note: don't drive while doing this)
  • Now that all these companies in the consumer electronic industry realize that Linux offers a lot of advanatages, will they stop sueing us for getting their products supported?
  • Some of us have probably seen this b4. Correct me if im wrong, but wasn't there a later version of the N64 running Linux? There are a few devices out there already running Linux, you maynot even know about them. Some of the GMC cars use a embeded *nix OS (not sure which ones, or which OS). The overall idea is good. But don't forget, this is not going to be a cellphone that boots up and you see lilo.
  • Uh, no. PalmOS has nothing needed in cellphones, that's why Symbian was created, and what Epoc is for ...
  • The name fits you. Anonymous Coward. MUAHAHA. Sorry, i don't want to pay for somthing when i can get a better OS for free.
  • Oh lord, M$ on a cell phone? Dial a number and the phone BlueScreens. :-) I don't want a cellphone that crashes.
  • Yep, that's what I always liked about Linux - the open source sea urchin :)

    Dude, that would make a great sig!

  • many question why simple devices should run linux.

    for many embedded systems, there is a low production count. they may actually make more profit per device by using a full-blown PC-on-a-chip over a small microcontroller.

    the time to market is shorter, and the development costs are much lower.

    if you can't amortize the higher cost engineering that goes into a microcontroller based system over many devices, then the pc-on-a-chip is a better deal.
  • I can't think of anything better to power my turbocharged Mitsubishi Eclipse than TurboLinux :-)

  • Several posters have asked "why do they want to use Linux in a car, phone, etc?". Please bear in mind that the term Embedded System may mean a very high level system in many cases:

    Audio appliances with MP3 or CDR capabilities.

    Digital video boxes (like the Tivio). Includes capture, store on disk, GUI.

    In-car navigation system. Includes GPS receiver, LCD map display, DVD to store map.

    Medical scanning equipment. Includes networking, database, image display and GUI.

    Industrial machinery. Includes networking, control GUI.

    Electronic Point Of Sale systems (cash registers). Include database, networking, GUI.

    Voice mail and digital telephony systems.

    Web boxes. Web browsing and email appliances for the home.

    Many of these devices are currently manufactured with stock PC components. They may run various operating systems including Linux, Windows, and DOS (a fine real-time OS, in a sense). An industry initiative to develop a sutable version of Linux makes good sense.

  • In the early 80's, this same group of Japanese electronics giants got together and signed a formal agreement to forward the purposes of the TRON project, which was the result of a large amount of computer science research done by a number of Japans top computer scientists.

    The purpose of TRON (this was *BEFORE* the movie) was to create a single kernel architecture that can be used in multiple electronics devices, with an *open* (to the industry at that time, open meant they shared the specs with each other) communications protocol.

    In essence: ubiquitous computing.

    This resulted in a huge decrease in product design costs for the Japanese consumer electronics market, as TRON kernels have been used in everything from microwave ovens to robotic car manufacture assembly lines.

    This effort waned somewhat during the late 90's due in part to the costs associated with keeping TRON up to date with microprocessor development, and the Japanese economic depression certainly played a part as well.

    So it makes *total sense* and is very good news indeed, to hear that these electronics giants are continuing the TRON-like effort using Linux, and using the GNU-like methodology for maintaining this project in the future.

    As an avid follower of the machinations of Japanese consumer electronics giants, this is some very good news to me indeed.

    BTW, details about TRON are out there on the 'net, for those that are interested. One of Japans leading computer scientists was involved in the project during the early 80's, and his vision was very much driven by the Japanese manic sci-fi ethos. It makes for some crazy reading, for sure, but it all happened and is evident in all that Japanese consumer electronics gear around you.

    Do a bit of scanning through a binary dump of the kernel in your digital camera/microwave oven/VCR/MiniDisc player, and you may find some interesting references to the TRON kernel, and/or leading consulting firms in Japan that were a part of the TRON kernel software development industry...

  • Re:Ok wait up hold it right there! (Score:3)

    by obakasan ( 19143 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @02:04PM (#937832)

    I'd say a full 90% of the systems out there have absolutely no need for a full (or even stripped down) Linux (or anything else) kernel. Cellphones?! gimme a break!

    I'd agree that it does seem like putting Linux on a cellphone might be a bit of overkill, but I think this actually makes sense given the Japanese electronics market.

    The Japanese article mentioned "cellphones, home electronics, and car navigation systems," all of which are fairly complex pieces of machinery here in Japan, more often than not connected to the internet:

    • The newer car-nav systems are essentially already very specialized PCs in their own right: Color LCD's, internet access with the ability to calculate alternate routes in heavy traffic, and a DVD drive so you can watch movies while you're stuck in traffic.
    • Home electronics are heading in the same direction (Don't know about you, but I don't see much difference between the PlayStation II and that $199 Linux-powered NIC that showed up on Slashdot yesterday, except that the PlayStation is a lot cooler; imagine if it were open and you could buy one and use it as an X-terminal...)
    • Cell phones are getting there. The most popular cell-phone service in Japan right now (high school students even carry these things) is NTT's i-Mode, which features e-mail and specialized internet access, with which people can transfer money from their bank account, book airline tickets, find restaurants, read news headlines, etc. (exactly what Japanese people with tiny cellphone screens would want when they're walking around with said tiny cellphones).

    It seems that the software in these things would be fairly complex. It seems to me like it's a good idea that these things all use a compatible OS -- I'm frankly amazed and quite happy that all of these companies have decided to decide upon an open and freely-available standard. The nice thing about Linux is that it's free, it's available now, and companies can modify it to make it as light as they need. Just because they're choosing Linux, it doesn't mean that my next cell phone is going to have X and a complete TeX installation on it or anything.

  • Got a bit lazy in my post, but discovered I'd had a few links on the subject of TRON/CTRON/ITRON stashed away for those that are interested:

    http://www.tron.org/
    http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/itron.html
    http://www.atip.or.jp/public/atip.reports.94/tro n-93.94.html
    http://tron.um.u-tokyo.ac.jp/TRON/ITRON/panph96/ panph96.html

    Should be some good reading for you in there, enjoy!

    :)
  • Oops found some more:

    http://www.itron.gr.jp/panph98/panph98-e.html
    http://www.itron.gr.jp/
  • Well, youre probably right...

    However, just that the (interrupt) latency is low isnt enough. I once wanted to implement a simple serial protocol under Linux. The problem was that i wanted to create a 5 ms delay (before switching of the carrier) without freezing the other tasks. I wanted to the the timer (real time timer) to wake up my process (via SIGALRM). Thats when i found out that the system worked with a resolution of 10 ms ("jiffies?").

    I wouldnt mind missing a deadline once in a while, but i wanted it to work in atleast 95% of the time...
  • Still, could be worse, you might get a start button instead of a keypad
  • However, one thing to remember (and something that Linus has mentioned recently) is that for many tasks, the Linux kernel's latency is low enough that you don't need a real-time kernel. (Of course, this could change when you're talking about an embedded system for cars or industrial robots...)

    And processingly audio processing, seemingly, judging by recent discussions on linux-kernel. I got the impression that Linux's latency isn't actually all that low without a few hacky patches.

    I'm a little surprised that so many people of this sort go for Linux rather than one of the BSDs because of the licence. Do /you/ want to be distributing source code with your new mobile phone? FreeBSD at least always seems to be quite sensitive to the needs of companies who don't...to the point of trying very hard to keep GPL licenced code out of critical parts of the system.

    [sigh] I guess it's largely a case of better marketing/more widespread attention for Linux.

  • This is a little rumor I heard from a freind that works for Panasonic (Matsushita). He says they are dabbling with their own embedded linux for some of their phone systems. Maybe they don't want to share.
  • It's very simple really. With a *nix you controll what the machine does and you can make it do anything at all if you are prepared to learn a bit. With Windows you can do pretty much only what the software will let you do. This is why there is so much software developed for the Windows platform that doesn't come as standard but gives it some functionality apart from as a games platform. Stuff for remote access, batch schedulers, good backup tools, scripting languages, development tools etc etc etc etc.

    *nix allows you to wipe out your entire system with one simple command with no complaints. This is it's power!
  • Um, not wanting to sound like some GPL-fanatic, but is this really a problem? If "they", i.e. a bunch of the world's largest hi-tech companies, make a mistake which legally forces them to deliver source code with all their cool products, who loses? Certainly not "us", i.e. the geeks (who also happen to be consumers) of the world. Or? If they didn't want to have to deliver source, one would hope that they would be smart enough not to pick a kernel licensed under the GPL, right? I think I don't quite see what's worth sighing about here. Unless, of course, you're afraid that they plan to violate the GPL by withholding the source. That could be a problem. FSF's lawyers against that consortium's could become bloody... :(
  • Do /you/ want to be distributing source code with your new mobile phone?

    As I understand it, they wouldn't to distribute the source with every phone; they would simply have to make it available. So they post it on their web site, providing the URL with the product documentation. They'd be GPL compliant for the cost of a little ink and a small amount of space on a server. I don't see how that would be a problem for them.

  • Now that several Japanese companies will work with TurboLinux to create a standardized embedded Linux for small electronic devices, one good thing is that we will end up with a "de facto" standard for embedded Linux so programming for such devices will be quite a bit easier.

    I'm not surprised that TurboLinux is involved in this project given that TurboLinux was developed originally so it could support Asian character sets such as Big 5 and Shift-JIS. This way, the Japanese programmers can work much of the time in their own native language.

  • FORK? (Score:1)

    by VC ( 89143 )
    Anything they can fork, we can merge.
  • I know the next generations cellphones are going to use the next generation DSP's: TI, ... Look at their performance (and/or) claims and you can judge for yourself. Multiple billions of instructions per second!

  • Re:Ok wait up hold it right there! (Score:3)

    by Shotgun ( 30919 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @07:39AM (#937845)
    Because of LABOR cost!

    Linux has proved itself to be the most portable OS ever created. This will make it much easier to get it on any device they are running.

    Once they have Linux on the device, they can enlist any Linux developer to help them develope additional functions and interfaces.

    What's the other choice. Pick an OS that must be paid for ($5 added to the cost of a consumer device is massive). TRAIN ALL DEVELOPERS to use program this OS. When the next device is developed, buy a different OS and you get to TRAIN ALL DEVELOPERS again. Hiring is complicated and expensive because you'll have to TRAIN ALL DEVELOPERS you hire in the exotic OS your using. By another company and you have to TRAIN ALL DEVELOPERS in this exotic OS the probably have never seen before.

    (Is the pattern emerging yet?)

    Companies like to have standards that don't involve the areas where they're trying to differentiate themselves, make it cheaper for them to operate, and make their products cheaper. $5 for EPOCH on each production unit cell phone would be a large percentage of the production cost, and that isn't even considering what it cost to train someone in the basics of the OS, let alone paying someone with enough experience to actually be good with the OS.

    There is every reason in the world for the hardware companies to want to standardize on a OS layer peice of software. It'll let device operate better together (many more total units sold - all the boats will rise in that wave), make the devices cheaper to develope (making the wave bigger), and by avoiding the proprietary OSs (kiss our butt M$) will make the devices cheaper to market (oohh, big wave).

  • Hey, phones don't need windows to crash. I've crashed many a Nokia (mainly older ones, eg. 2110e) but the fave for crashability would have to be Ericsson - i've crashed my ericsson phone more times than i care to recall, and a mate of mine recently had to get a new T28s as the firmware f*&ked up and couldn't be rebooted...
  • In a word: free. With processors as cheap and widely available as they are, performance issues are not as serious as many people seem to think. Sure, coding an embedded OS from the ground up might be a little more efficient, the costs for licensing or developing your own is likely to be a lot more expensive than simply beefing up your processor a bit. As for the various customization work that they'd have to do, that's what the open source community is for, there are lots of us who think that trying to add thus-and-such functionality to their cellphone's OS a great way to spend a weekend. All this consortium has to do is pick up the slack.
  • O.K, point taken (Although we're not talking just mobile phones here)

    But the point still stands that there are better solutions for embeded devices than Linux.
  • Linux has proved itself to be the most portable OS ever created.

    Or maybe NetBSD.

  • Nah, what I want is an internet connected Boogie Bass with a team of leading fish comedians working on new lines and songs for the Boogie Bass to deliver. Then I would buy it. Hell, SEVERAL.
    ---

  • Re:ANTI TROLL WON'T BOTHER (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OK, here is why linux is a piece of crap: 1. I don't like open source. I don't know about you, but I like to make money off my code. 2. Open source is not secure. Open source, look at the public access code to find a bug and expoit it. EASY!! 3. Stealing code: If I put my code out there that I worked hard on, some retard will try to steal it and use it in his own program. Then he will release his program that is using my code as his own and sell it to compete with me!! 4. Linux crashes. I purchased Suse Linux 6.2 a while ago and it crashed all the time, Windows has only crashed like 3 time in the last 4 years I have been using it. 5. Bad software design. What the hell do all these dumb terms mean??? YAST, GNU, KDE? I am an end user, not some anti-Microsoft freak and as an end user, I don't care what this means! I want a program that I know generally what it is when I pick it up off the shelf. Visual C++, Office 2000, etc. I know what this means when I read it. By the way, don't reply if your going to say one of the classic replies I have recieved: because you don't know what that means, it just demonstrates your ignorance. I don't want to waste my time reading that worthless garbage! If your going to post, make it worthwhile please. To date I have only recieved ONE good post which I am replying to now! Thats pretty sad for a group who thinks they are superior to Windows. Anyway, 6. USER FRIENDLY, Linux is not, Windows is, need I say more? 7. X Window System is just a cheap ripoff of Windows. It looks just like it! You can't argue that one! 8. Really messed up my computer. I gave it 5 GB of my HDD and when I discovered it was nothing more than a ripoff of Windows, I tried to give it back to the good OS, Windows. However, Linux caused none of my partitioning programs to recognise the partition. It was as though it no longer existed. It destroyed 5GB of my HDD. Thats half of my space. What the crap is that all about?!? By the way, most people are Windows fans anyway with a trend supporting Microsoft, so you Linux people will die out soon enough... Any good posts, like why you think Linux is superior. -1, I have yet to find one. What does that tell you?
  • One other important point is the absence of Matsushita (and thereby National/Panasonic and Aiwa)

    1) Matsushita is absent possibly because it's one of major investors in Symbian.

    2) Why do you put Aiwa here ?? Its major shareholder is Sony (over 50%), not M. !

  • Why Linux why not RTLinux. Should be per suitable for many embedded systems.

  • Free English link (Score:5)

    by Dix ( 73628 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @02:49AM (#937854)
    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000713/tc/japan_ dc_1.html

  • URL from LinuxToday story (Score:3)

    by Dienyddio ( 161154 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @02:53AM (#937855)
    Linux Today has this sory and provides the URL http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2000/07/13/asia/wires/japan_w g/ [cnn.com]
  • Why would anyone want to try to run Linux on a mobile phone? What exactly do you gain over all the other long-standing and well respected things like EPOCH?

    How exactly is OS style development going to work on an OS for a burglar alarm - I mean these devices aren't readily available for playing around with.

    Maybe Linux really is suited to this stuff, I don't know, but it seems odd to take an OS designed as a multi-user system for one of the world's most powerful* and power-hungry CPU architectures and try to turn it into an OS for a phone.

    Has anyone done a good comparison of Embedded Linux with other embedded OSes?

    This seems more about some hardware companies getting scared that the software layer is becoming more important. _They_ would love to have a non-proprietary OS that everyone uses - because then the hardware becomes the deciding factor in product quality.

    So, less about really wanting to have the best OS, more about marketplace survival tactics...

    *Powerful relative to CPUs for embedded devices

  • Sorry for the lcruddy ink, guys... (Score:5)

    by BJH ( 11355 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @02:54AM (#937857)
    OK, sorry for the bogus link to the Nikkei English site - I didn't know that their registration policy requires a credit-card number (!), even for a free trial.
    It seems that the only English article around at the moment is here [cnn.com] at CNNfn; they have a reasonable summary of the situation, but it's slightly different in content from the Nikkei article, so for your edification, I've included my translation of the Japanese Nikkei piece. (My comments are in italics.)

    OS development collaboration for digital home electronics
    23 Japanese electronic and telecommunications companies, including Toshiba, Sony and NEC, in addition to two universities, including Waseda University, have reached a basic agreement on collaborative development of an OS for controlling digital home electronics, mobile phones, car navigation systems and other products. Utilizing the rapidly-spreading free (This is "free" as in "free beer") OS, Linux, the OS will be made available to the public to use freely (This "free" is "libre"), and is expected to contribute to lower product development cost. The group will also call for participation from overseas corporations in an effort to make the OS a global de facto standard. Microsoft currently controls the world market for PC-based operating systems, but the Japanese group will join together to create a common infrastructure for an OS for next-generation information devices, such as digital home electronics, which are anticipated to undergo rapid growth in the future.
    A controlling organization, the Japan Embedded Linux Consortium, will be founded on the 13th of this month. Other than Toshiba, etc., Fujitsu, Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric will also participate. In addition to software companies such as TurboLinux and Elmic Systems [elmic.co.jp], Waseda University [waseda.ac.jp]'s engineering department (Waseda is one of the top two or three private universities in Japan) and the Toyohashi University of Technology [tut.ac.jp] will take part.

    One nuance that doesn't come through well in translation is the bit where they say the OS will be freely available - an exaggerated interpretation would be something like "the consortium is planning to be so gracious as to make the OS freely available to the public", an interesting bit of spin considering that they would have to make at least the kernel, and quite possibly much of userland, available, thanks to the GPL.

    One other important point is the absence of Matsushita (and thereby National/Panasonic and Aiwa) from the consortium, which foreshadows the possibility of yet another Beta/VHS war. One has to wonder what Matsushita are going to do in reply to this (I very much doubt that they would just ignore it).
  • I think they're just using the name "Linux" as a general term - it's quite possible that theymight choose RTLinux instead of the mainline kernel.
    However, one thing to remember (and something that Linus has mentioned recently) is that for many tasks, the Linux kernel's latency is low enough that you don't need a real-time kernel. (Of course, this could change when you're talking about an embedded system for cars or industrial robots...)
  • Didn't the same companies team up 16 years ago with a certain software company to launch MSX?
  • They know that this will either give them control over Linux or remove any credibility it has in this market. Either way they are happy. If it loses credibility, it prevents any new competitors coming up and competing. If they control it, then it prevents any new competitors from coming up and competing.

    When they release the source, it will be an ancient version for anyone other than the consortium members. Anyone who decides to use it will find that they're at least 2 generations behind by the time they can get a product to market.
  • Just to correct myself - a Yahoo article linked below [slashdot.org] mentions that Matsushita "has shown an interest in participating in the consortium". Which means that it would have close to 100% coverage of the Japanese electronics industry.

    It does, however, also contain this disturbing line: "The consortium members, who will have free access to the OS that they can modify for use in their own digital electronics and mobile phones..."
    That would tend to indicate that non-members of the consortium (i.e. you, me and everyone else here) would not be given free access to the OS (presumably they mean the sourcecode). Hmmm...

  • I'm skeptical. A mobile phone running a variant of Linux would be cool. But I have to think that running Linux on some of these other devices is nothing but marketing crap. Currently my car doesn't run Linux. It works fine. Why would someone want to decide to rewrite all the software they currently have to run a car's CD player, tape player, radio, clock, anti-lock brakes, power steering, etc. to run a different OS that was never designed to do this?

    It's simply a bunch of hard work for the parties involved! Linux was never designed for a car, and cars don't need Linux to run. I admit there are some exceptions, like one guy I met who made a killer modification to his car so he could play MP3s - it had a Pentium II and a 20 gig hard drive inside his car. That's something Linux was designed to do.

    But from a feasibility standpoint, I don't really believe that running Linux on a car would be that great. A car doesn't need a professionally written IP stack. Hell, it doesn't need an IP stack at all!

  • I like the last line of the CNN article: "Linux is a computer operating system that performs functions broadly similar to Microsoft's Windows. "
  • Or we would never, ever see the benefits of their work. The GPL isn't all bad, guys.

    What makes you think that? If they hadn't intended to make their work available then they wouldn't have chosen a GPLd system. If they'd gone for a BSD system then why does that necessarily imply that they would have suddenly changed their minds on that? It's far easier to keep up to date if you feed your generally applicable changes back to the original project.

    I wonder how they'll cope if they have to write a driver for hardware under NDA...I'm not convinced that a binary only kernel module wouldn't be considered part of a 'derived work'.

  • Yes, I agree. For God's sake, use an operating system that was designed for the system you want it to run on. Linux was -not- designed for the mobile phone (although if they gave you a little console it'd be really, really, cool).

    You know, you're sitting there in a meeting with your phone and it rings. You pick it up and one of your users tells you that the mail server is down. As the good little sysadmin that you are, you thank him and hang up. Then you open your ssh connection back to the mail server and restart sendmail from the console on the mobile phone.

    Yeah, that'll be the day.

  • yup, and MSX2. With an OS and basic written by Mr Bill.
    Died 'cos of infighting and product delays. Good machine for its time. Still got one in my loft - Linux for MSX?
  • >Doesn't take much to get you Microsoft
    >Astroturfers shitting in your pants, does
    >it? Is this *really* that hard for morons
    >like you to comprend?

    Why does my desire to prevent unneccesary
    branches make me a whatever? I think that
    the industry embracing Linux is great.

    >A lot of the stuff that'll be going into
    >Linux designed for embedded purposes
    >wouldn't be really useful for the general
    >standard-purpose Linux kernel and most
    >likely wouldn't be included in a standard
    >Linux dists meant to run on PC's. Different
    >processors, diffrent kernel code.


    I agree that the required features will be somewhat different, but if 'embedded'-Linux will run on SOC that are architecturally simmilar to PC:s, should SOME features be candidates for incorporation in the 'vanilla' kernel.
    Cheers!

  • Re:This is waay cool, but... (Score:3)

    by WhyteRabbyt ( 85754 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @04:08AM (#937868) Homepage

    Your next cell may be a complete personal data/communications device that approaches the power of current PDAs, palmtops, or even a laptop.

    Personally, I think the convergence should be the other way round. If you need a bog-simple mobile, use one. If you need a 'complete personal data/communications device', buy a full-blown PDA with built in cellphone capabilities.

    However, this does put a large corporate consortium in a position of direct influence over an open source product. The jury should be out for quite some time to determine whether this is good or bad for Linux.

    Cobblers. I get tired of hearing this lame 'they're going to hijack or steal our OS' line. The point about the Linux develeopment model is that it can't be hijacked, not without serious forkage. Its a benevolent dictatorship, effectively, and if Linus doesnt like it, it wont happen. I dont know how the hell any consortium is going to change that. Swamp the kernel list with excellent patches containing subtle code restructuring the OS to their own nefarious ends? Um, nope.

    Now's the time for all of us to be communicating with consortium member companies to make our communal wishes and concerns known.

    My main wish is that people thought a wee bit more before they started spouting paranoid nonsense. What exactly is it that causes this kneejerk 'the big boys are gonna steal our toy' reaction? Answers on a postcard...


    Pax,

    White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++

  • Um, not wanting to sound like some GPL-fanatic, but is this really a problem?

    No, probably not. I'm just expressing surprise not attacking them.

    I think I don't quite see what's worth sighing about here.

    I'm just sighing because there is a really excellent OS out there that seems to be getting ignored for largely hype-related reasons...especially when that OS (well, those OSs) seem to be quite careful to consider embedded systems when decisions are being made.

  • Hehe, just don't forget to mknod all those important car devices...
  • Whether or not Japanese manufacturers try to cram too much Linux into too small a device seems irrelevant to me. Some will, some won't. What is outstanding about this is that on the occasion that I see something that they manufacture, and I want I can retire the phrase, "Damn, only Windows drivers."

    If every new computer-interfaced toy that comes out of that island is developed first with a Linux driver, and secondly with a micros~1 driver, it's going to make our fav. OS vastly more appealling to consumers.

    If they screw up their kernel, they can always download a good working one from Debian :) .

  • Remember the futurists wet dream of having everything 'internet connected'. The whole thing that suddenly was "this is the future" like a year ago with 'intelligent fridges' and internet-connected hifi's.

    Linux's networking features etc. make a great deal of sense to this.

    Actually I'd really like a hifi I could stick a USB cable into link it up to the PC for a and set up a playlist remotely/download tunes to.
    Or even animate the little LED graphics EQ!

  • Since Linux Torvalds created linux it was the start of the decline of M$ for many reasons. Windows got too greedy... they started going into the internet (e.g Internet Explorer) then the Netscape sued ... nothen happened my putt ... Coral?.... now this it is not that they see that linux is better now ... even that it is ... they pay for the rights to M$ windows and they saw the light OPEN SOURCE ... the biggest step is seeing what they can do with Linux ME(Mini Editions) one example is the recent watch that was on Linux Journal a Video Phone watch? they then saw the Multitasking part of linux ... and we all know the market is dumb and slow ... well we always see the japanese very smart if they are going to do it in 10 years you well see a big switch from Windows to Linux. LET THAT LIME-LIGHT SHINE LIKE THE SUN... HIPP HIPP ARRAH LINUX IS GOING TO LAY THE BIG SLAP DOWN ON M$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • If this is your source ! it awfully looks like an April fool, the Zdnet article is from Sat, 01 Apr 2000 15:38:47 GMT, too bad :( it would have been really nice if it were true !!

    http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2000/13/ns-14524.htm l

  • Those all cost $$$ and apparently the japs don't want to pay.

    Processors get smaller and faster all the time, no one could imagine Unix on a laptop 20 years ago... don't be so shortsighted.

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • Most companies using BSD never contribute back to the community. They hoard the software and might dribble back some trivial fix. Usually they keep the good stuff for themselves and never help the community evolve.

    My point is that if a company doesn't /want/ to give back then they simply won't use a GPL system. If the BSDs were GPLd they simply *wouldn't use it*...since they are they can and, as a result, you'd expect there to be more BSD companies not releasing their changes compared to Linux. That doesn't mean that the BSDs are losing out compared to what would happen if they used the GPL.

    That is one of the main reasons BSD is stagnating.

    I don't see any sign of it stagnating. They are all excellent OSs with their own strengths. What makes you think they are stagnating?

  • I wonder what their relationship with the Linux Consortium, which has been recently created, will be ? See http://www.embedded-linux.org/ !

    I am afraid we will end up with many embeded Linux, what about Mobile Linux from Transmeta too ? There are too many interests in stack now !?

    you said fragmention ? even with source provided.

  • Sorry to rain on the parade, but Sony isn't involved. The press release that came out after this one said that their involvement was "pre-final, whatever that means.

  • This is waay cool, but... (Score:3)

    by dkh2 ( 29130 ) <dkh2@WhyDoMyTits I t c h .com> on Thursday July 13, 2000 @03:21AM (#937879) Homepage
    Yes, there now is a good chance that your future cell phone will come with an embedded Linux OS and will do a whole lot more than place voice calls and surf the wireless web. Your next cell may be a complete personal data/communications device that approaches the power of current PDAs, palmtops, or even a laptop.

    However, this does put a large corporate consortium in a position of direct influence over an open source product. The jury should be out for quite some time to determine whether this is good or bad for Linux.

    There are a lot of opportunities here for the Linux community to get even more widespread acceptance and active use of Linux and other O-S OS's. Now's the time for all of us to be communicating with consortium member companies to make our communal wishes and concerns known.

  • The concept is to provide a standard embedded OS, so that future cars and other devices can be developed from a standard OS. This means:

    Faster development
    Cheaper development
    More developers
    Faster product to market
    Easier "Ugrades" (You can't upgrade your Car OS now, even if you wanted to)

    Get the drift?

  • Ok wait up hold it right there! (Score:3)

    by tzanger ( 1575 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @03:26AM (#937881) Homepage

    Linux in cellphones and pagers and cars and industrial machinery? WHY?

    Why bog down the processor with a full embedded operating system? I don't understand this. I design embedded systems for a living and I'd say a full 90% of the systems out there have absolutely no need for a full (or even stripped down) Linux (or anything else) kernel. Cellphones?! gimme a break!

    I'm happy and all to see Linux move out into every corner of the market but isn't this a little like porting Linux to the Commodore 64? "Big Iron" in the sense of embedded systems may be perfect for Linux (cell tower stations, control systems for industrial machinery, etc.) but why would you want Linux running in the mouse you're using or the cellphone or pager you're wearing?

    I can't get in to the English article and I can't read Japanese but unless they are talking about providing a RT scheduler and not a whole lot else this isn't making any sense. Hell if they only provide the scheduler and a few services it isn't even Linux IMO. "Based on" yes but not "is".

  • No, I don't think so. The fact is, development time for CarOS is pretty low right now. There isn't really a whole lot of stuff you have to do if you already work for a car manufacturer. They already have finished the development of CarOS. So, faster development is out. Cheaper development is out. And faster product to market is out. As for easier upgrades, I think that CarOS (or whatever it is) is stored in Flash ROM and can be upgraded at the dealership even now. I personally DON'T want to flash the ROM on my car. But, it would kinda be cool to see the source (if it's Linux, it's GPL) for this new car operating system that's based off Linux.

  • Here [cnet.com] on news.com [news.com].
  • If the technology center of the world starts using open source, this could provide a boost at a key point for Linux. Also, does anyone see the posibiliteis of major corporations publicly switching to Linux. Open source Cell Phones? PDAs? What we're seeing here could be a hallmark of an increasingly "yay Linux" time.

    Also, if opne source starts being used extensively in PDAs, Cell Phones, and other everyday items, we would be able to find ways to make our data more secure; because 2 million open source programmers will find more ways to solve problems than 50 closed-source programmers.

    And let us never forget one thing
    Never throw a dead chipmunk at a police officer-
    Lawrence Wiseman
  • The bit about 'making the OS freely available' sounds like they arn't on the same wavelength as the community. Should we be concerned that the 'consortiums' will cause more fragmentation of Linux? There are some versions of Linux that 'exists' as patches, and add functionality that for some reason arn't included in the 'standard' kernel. It sounds like this OS will be a complete fork, though. Is there a risk that the modifications that are made will make it difficult to move useful functionality from one kernel to another? Will the concortium understand the importance of preventing this? If the developement process of this new OS is visible to the community, we will ofcause be able to influence them before things go wrong. Lets hope that the consortium isnt to secretive.
  • The IP stack is useful for managing the downloading of .mp3 files from your home onto your in-car jukebox.

  • This is, no matter which way you look at it, good news. This is better than *.Net becoming de facto in all devices connected to the Internet.

    As for violating the GPL, I believe that there was a news article a while back in Slashdot about the GPL being tested in a court of law sometime soon.

    This is another step to world domination. Hopefully

  • Re:Embedded linux (Score:3)

    by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-homeNO@SPAMcobol2java.com> on Thursday July 13, 2000 @04:43AM (#937888) Homepage
    Well, if you take a look here [lwn.net] - you'll see some patches which are planned to be merged into the kernel. The latest version of the patch is up to nine rescheduling points, and provides latencies of less than 1ms 99.999% of the time. So the latencies problems in the mainstream kernel should be history soon. Also, I don't know how many people actually do know this, but the PlayStation 3 (not just the development machine) will be Linux based.

  • Re:Big businesses want to control Linux (Score:3)

    by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @04:49AM (#937890) Homepage
    Anyone who decides to use it will find that they're at least 2 generations behind by the time they can get a product to market.

    Well, that's how it is now, isn't it? When the next new stable kernel is released, hand a copy of the source code to your favorite comp sci grad and ask them to develop some improvements. If they've not been actively involved in studying or developing the kernel before you hand them the source, it's going to take them a while just to read the code, let alone grok it, and it will be a while after that before they coud significantly improve it.

    Meanwhile, the current kernel developers already know the code, know where the weaknesses are, know how they want to improve it, and will be quite a ways ahead of anyone starting from scratch. This, BTW, is one of the reasons why ESR says that opening your currently closed source will not hurt your business; if your competitors decide to copy what you've done, it will take them a long time to get up to speed.

  • Why would anyone want to try to run Linux on a mobile phone? What exactly do you gain over all the other long-standing and well respected things like EPOCH?

    some reasons I can think of:

    1. Porting existing code to EPOC is a major nasty. It supports C++ and Java only, with C added on (I think) _over_ the C++ libraries, which are themselves fairly unusual.

    2. $5 or $10 has to be paid to Symbian per EPOC-running unit sold. Not the case for linux-based things.

    3. I have no _idea_ what hoops must be jumped through to get EPOC ported to a new platform or to be allowed the source to do a port. I bet they are flaming ones though.

    4. Of course, vendor lock-in. Using EPOC, you are relying on Symbian to release new versions, not go under, not sell out to Microsoft, etc.

    I don't know anything about other OS's specifically designed for small devices, but I guess the problems are similar. A Linux-based solution would solve at least _some_ of the problems. This particular Linux-based solution sounds like it won't be solving 3 and 4 for us.

    How exactly is OS style development going to work on an OS for a burglar alarm - I mean these devices aren't readily available for playing around with.

    It would help those of us working for companies that write burglar alarm (or whatever) software!

  • Here's a link [teletranslator.com] to a translation of the original Nikkei article converted from Japanese to English by the Gist guys. This is the default translator site built into Mozilla. It tries to do a good job, but it's kinda funny how some phrases go:


    As the gratuitous OS quickly general/universal And you use the Linux which has been done, can use everyone freely The sea urchin it releases, can connect to the development cost reduction of the product.
    Yep, that's what I always liked about Linux - the open source sea urchin :)

  • Pluses for Linux:

    1) Cost. Have you looked at how much it costs to licence an os like VxWorks or OS9? If you have any number of developers, your going to be paying a hundred grand for startup and the first years support. But that isn't the worst of it. You'll be paying $12-20 a chip for every system you ship to run that OS. And Linux is... oh, right, free.

    2) Drivers. If you have any odd peripherals you want to connect up the system you're building, its handy of the drivers already exist for the OS you're using. This is much more likely to be true with Linux.

    3) Customization. Especially if you're running on custom hardware, its nice to be able to get under the hood and tweak things appropriately. This is much easier if you have an open source OS.

    4) Oh yeah, and in today's job market especially, its easier to find people with Linux experience than experience in FooBar commercial RTOS.

    Minuses:

    1) Hard realtime needs. If you can't get away with knowing that something will happen within a couple of milliseconds, not a couple of clock cycles, you're probably in trouble. This is an area where Linux for embedded applictions is currently lacking, but there are people working on it.

    2)The only other minus I can think of for linux is size. But that's not even a huge deal. I mean, so what if FooBar propriatary RTOS has a 4K kernel? Who has memory needs that are that stringent these days?

    The bottom line is, yes, there are a lot of systems that Linux is not yet right for. But if you can get away with it, its worth doing.

    spreer

  • But Win allows you to "wipe your entire system with one simple command too".

    It is called

    format c:\

    Tom
  • I think there are several advantages to adopting linux as a standard OS for embedded devices, but I do agree linux probably isn't the best OS for any particular embedded device. There are obviously lots of things like POSIX compliance, multiple users, etc. that you really don't need in an embedded device. But this really isn't that big a deal, since you can just yank it out of the kernel.

    The obvious advantages over other embedded OSs though, is widespread use and availablility of development tools, open source with no controlling commercial entity, the separation of the GUI, stability, and the ability to interoperate with just about any desktop system you can imagine. I mean, once you have a linux kernel and a tcp/ip stack running there's not much you *can't* do, and it's already been written.
  • How exactly is OS style development going to work on an OS for a burglar alarm - I mean these devices aren't readily available for playing around with. I know that this is Windows-centric, but there is currently a dearth of Itanium machines for developers to code and test on, so Microsoft and Intel have released development environments for writing 64-bit applications on 32-bit machines. Code is written and compiled on standard commodity machines, then tested on Itanium boxen accessible by remote. Although it may be a step down, rather than a step up, a similar strategy may work for embedded machines - vendors create development tools for taking advantage of device specific functionality, while writing on standard boxen. This would allow applications to be in the pipeline before devices hit the market.
  • Take a look at eCos [cygnus.com], which is a freely available from formerly-Cygnus-now-RedHat... I'm not sure about the license, if it fits the blessed "Open Source" definition, but eCos is deisgned for these types of applications, and is gaining acceptance...
  • Yeah, but now instead of chipping your auto to improve performance, just patch and recompile!

    Sure.

  • Re:Ok wait up hold it right there! (Score:3)

    by heikkile ( 111814 ) on Thursday July 13, 2000 @03:36AM (#937899)
    Cellphones?! gimme a break!

    Modern phones have quite much stuff in them already: address books, games, calendars, etc. And the traffic handling is not very simple either. Future phones will of course carry web browsers, and synchronize to your desktop calendars, and allow for third-party plug-ins. I believe a decent OS will make this sort of things easier to handle.

  • The Register has the story here [theregister.co.uk].

  • What?!? You mean you don't want to run a fully fledged, POSIX compliant, Unix-a-like Operating System on your mobile phone? Just think of the benefits: You can Telnet to your mobile! install GCC and code (Slogan: "It's smaller than a laptop!") Or you can go all fancy, install X, and use Netscape to browse fully graphical web pages!

    Seriously, i gotta agree. Linux would hardly be my choice for an embeded device, let alone a consumer embeded device like a mobile phone. When will people learn, "The right tool for the job"?

  • The reasons why (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I noticed a lot of responses were along the lines of why use any high level/general purpose embedded operating system. This seems like a dumb question and an issue that had already been decided by these companies long before this. What this represents is mearly a choice of which operating system to endorse most broadly, in the car, on the cell phone, etc, rather than if one should be used at all, and given a choice between Wince, Linux, and some specialized embedded OS, I think Linux is by far the most logical choice. Also, I do not believe the goal is to replace things that already work well with existing embedded micro-controllers, such as ignition systems in cars, since this seemed to be the most common comment, etc, but to build "applications" that really require a more general purpose OS, such as MP3 stereo player, car navigation systems, etc. As for the cell phone, I had my own doubts on this one, initially. However, cell phones might well be the first platform to evolve a true interactive voice interface, and they could then easily expand into more general purpose "PDA"-like devices. Why not Linux, which offers a clean kernel without excess bagage?

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