Embedded systems will be the losers [LWN.net]

Embedded systems will be the losers

Posted Dec 14, 2006 5:45 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)
Parent article: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned

Everyone is talking about whether their desktop will support 3D graphics and WiFi cards, but you're missing a bigger problem at the other end of the scale: embedded systems. There have been a lot of articles recently about how Linux is making major inroads as the OS of choice going _down_ the scale, as well as up. Companies like Wind River have started to bet the farm that Linux will take over as the embedded OS. Many of these embedded devices have special, custom hardware that requires unique kernel module support. None of this code would ever be used or useful anywhere except on these dedicated hardware boards and would never be contributed to the Linux kernel proper, and at the same time often it contains "secret sauce" that these companies rely on to differentiate themselves in what is often a razor-thin margin environment, and/or to avoid giving competitors an advantage.

I'm not saying this is a good enough reason to not make this change. I'm just pointing out that the desktop 3D graphics folks are not anywhere close to the only people to be impacted by this.

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Embedded systems will be the losers

Posted Dec 14, 2006 9:31 UTC (Thu) by electronghost (guest, #42218) [Link]

This is correct. In particular, anyone who writes a driver for an SDIO
device has to sign an NDA to see the SDIO spec which basically prevents
them from releasing the driver source. The whole thing seems pretty much
designed to prevent the use of free software with mobile phones &c

(Note: SDIO is not the same as SD-memory, which portion of the spec *is*
open)

Or maybe the winners

Posted Dec 14, 2006 12:03 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Proprietary Unices also claimed to have "unique advantages" in their closedness; now most vendors have embraced Linux, and the rest have gone free software or died.

Now all embedded vendors claim to have proprietary advantages, but most of them offer more or less the same stuff (like in wifi chips). Maybe they can start cooperating together instead.

Or maybe the winners

Posted Dec 14, 2006 12:47 UTC (Thu) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

No, I'm not talking about supporting "COTS" components like wifi chips, etc. I'm talking about custom asics or fpgas that are produced specifically for a given product. These things are often handled through a bunch of random ioctls with little to no standardization, etc. and they provide very specific capabilities that would never be useful without those specific custom hardware components.

Plus, you're talking about software: software is completely different than hardware. An OS having "unique advantages" is still easily applicable to lots of other people. Hardware having "unique advantages" is useful to no one except other people who own that particular hardware.

Nevertheless, I'm not saying at all that Linux shouldn't go this way. There would be a lot of advantages in a lot of areas, I think. But, I do believe a lot of the embedded market would move to another OS. It's simply easier for them to do that in many cases than to open up their drivers. And maybe that's fine too.

Another example

Posted Dec 14, 2006 15:27 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Hmmm true, my example may be a little contrived.

Then think about workstation vendors 25 years ago: Hercules, Apollo... They all claimed to have proprietary advantages with their hardware + software combinations. Then Sun came along with their standard, open platform (based on standard hardware and *BSD Unix), and swept all of them away; in the process creating a new market for cheap, general purpose workstations. HP et al followed suit. There was a very nice account written by a Sun executive, but I cannot find it right now, sorry.