Distributions

Tizen compliance

Tizen is intended to serve as a base Linux distribution for consumer electronics products, from phones to automobile dash systems, all built and sold by different manufacturers—yet offering a consistent set of application-level APIs. Consequently, one of the problems the project clearly needs to address is assessing the compliance of products marketed as Tizen offerings. At the 2013 Tizen Developer Conference in San Francisco, several sessions examined the compliance program and the testing process involved.

First, Intel's Bob Spencer addressed the goals and scope of the compliance program. Perhaps the biggest distinction he made was that only hardware products would be subject to any compliance testing; applications will not need to be submitted for tests. That said, applications will need to conform to packaging and security guidelines, but as he put it "acceptance into the Tizen app store means success" on that front. The project is working on a tool to flag build and packaging errors for app developers, but it is not ready for release.

As for hardware, Spencer said, companies developing a Tizen-based product will not need to send in physical devices. Instead, they will need to send the results of the compliance test suite to the Tizen Association, along with a "branding request" for approval of the use of the Tizen trademark.

In broad strokes, he said, the compliance model consists of a set of specifications and the test suite that checks a device against them. The specification distinguishes between requirements (i.e., "MUST" statements) and recommendations ("SHOULD" statements). There is a common core specification that applies to all Tizen devices, plus separate "profile" specifications that address particular device categories. Each includes a combination of hardware and system software features. To get the compliance seal of approval, a device must pass both the common specification plus one or more device class profiles.

The "or more" requirement might allow a device to qualify as both a tablet (which falls under the "mobile" profile) and as a "convertible" (which, sadly, is not part of the automotive profile, but rather the "clamshell" profile also used for laptops). Interestingly enough, devices will not be allowed to qualify for Tizen compliance by meeting only the common core specification. At present, the common core specification and the "mobile" profile have been published for the Tizen 2.1 release as a "public draft." Spencer said that the final 2.1 specification is expected by the end of June.

The draft [PDF] does not separate out the common core and mobile profile requirements into distinct sections, which the site says will be done only once there are multiple device profiles published. On the compliance discussion list, Mats Wichmann said that this was due to the need to get a mobile profile specification out the door.

Spencer provided an overview of the specification in his session. He described the hardware requirements as being designed for flexibility, supporting low-end feature phones up to high-end smartphones, tablets from simple e-readers on up, and perhaps even watches (which, incidentally, marked the first mention of Tizen powered watches I have encountered). The list includes 512MB of RAM, 1GB of storage, at least one audio output, some form of Internet connectivity (which SHOULD be wireless), display resolution of at least 480×320, USB 2.0, and touch-screen support (which MUST support single-touch, but SHOULD support multi-touch).

There is considerably more flexibility regarding the vast assortment of sensors and radios found in phones today; the specification indicates that things like GPS, Near-Field Communications (NFC), and accelerometers are all optional, but that if a device provides any of them, it must implement the associated APIs.

At the moment, the draft requires supporting both Tizen's HTML5 APIs and its native APIs; Spencer said there were internal discussions underway as to whether there should be separate "web-only" and "web-plus-native" profile options. In addition to the application APIs, the software side of the specification requires that devices be either ARM or x86 architecture, defines application packaging and management behavior, lists required multimedia codecs, SDK and development tool compliance, and mandates implementation of the "AppControl" application control interface (which defines a set of basic cross-application operations like opening and displaying a file).

The requirements are a bit more stringent in one area: web runtimes. A device must provide both a standard web browser and a web runtime for HTML5 applications. In addition, both must be built from the official Tizen reference implementations (which are based on WebKit), and must not alter the exposed behavior implemented upstream. The browser and web runtime must also report a specific user agent string matching the reference platform and version information.

Testing, testing, testing

Immediately after Spencer finished his overview of the compliance specification, Samsung's Hojun Jaygarl and Intel's Cathy Shen spoke about the Tizen Compliance Test (TCT) used to assess devices. TCT is designed to verify that the version of Tizen running on a product conforms to the specifications, they said, although the project requires that the Tizen reference code will be ported to each device, rather than implemented from scratch. Consequently, the TCT tests are designed to test features that ensure a consistent application development environment and a consistent customer experience, but allow manufacturers to differentiate the user experience (UX).

The TCT battery of tests includes both automated and manual tests, they explained. The manual tests cover those features that require interoperating with other devices, such as pairing with another device over WiFi Direct, or human interaction (such as responding to button presses). The automated tests are unit tests addressing the mandatory hardware and software requirements of the specification, and compliance with any of the optional features the vendor chooses to implement.

TCT splits the native API and Web APIs into separate categories (although, again, both are currently required for any device to pass). The native TCT involves a native app called FtApp that executes individual tests on the device in question. The tests themselves are built on the GTest framework developed by Google. Tests are loaded into FtApp from a PC connected to the device via the Smart Development Bridge (SDB) tool in the Tizen SDK. There is also a GUI tool for the host PC to monitor test progress and generate the reports necessary for submission. The "native" tests cover the native application APIs, plus application control, conformance to security privileges, and the hardware features.

The web TCT can use the GUI tool to oversee the process, but there is a command line utility as well. This test suite involves loading an embedded web server onto the device, since it tests the compliance of the device's web runtime with the various Web APIs (including those coming from the W3C and the supplementary APIs defined by Tizen). It also tests the device's web runtime for compliance with package management, security, and privacy requirements, and can run tests on the device's hardware capabilities. These may not be completely automated, for example, involving a human to verify that the screen rotates correctly when the device is turned sideways. Finally, there is a tool called TCT-behavior that tests interactive UI elements; it, too, requires a person to operate the device.

The web TCT currently covers more than 10,000 individual tests, while the native TCT incorporates more than 13,000. Shen and Jaygarl said the automated tests take three to four hours to complete, depending on the device. The manual tests add about one more hour. Reports generated by the test manager are fairly simple; they list the pass/fail result for each test case, the elapsed time, the completion ratio (if applicable), and link to a more detailed log for each case. The test management tool is an Eclipse plugin, designed for use with the Tizen SDK.

During the Q&A at the end of the session, the all-important question of source code availability was raised by the audience. Shen and Jaygarl said that they expected to release the TCT test tools by the end of June. Currently, they are still working on optimizing the manual test cases—although it also probably goes without saying that the TCT can hardly be expected before the final release of the specification it is intended to test.

With more than 23,000 test cases, compliance with Tizen 2.1 will hardly be a rubber-stamp, though requiring vendors to port the reference code ought to take much of the guesswork out of the process. Jaygarl and Shen also commented that developers will be able to write their own test cases in GTest format and run them using the official TCT tools, so when the toolset arrives it may offer something to application developers as well as system vendors.

Compliance with a specification is not necessarily of interest to everyone building an embedded Linux system, nor even to everyone building a system based on Tizen. The program is designed to meet the needs of hardware manufacturers, after all, who already have other regulatory and development tests built into their product cycle. It will be interesting to see how the Tizen Compliance Program evolves to handle the non-mobile-device profiles in the future, but even if that takes a while, it could be amusing to run the tests against the first batches of commercially available Tizen phones, which are reported to arrive this year.

[The author wishes to thank the Linux Foundation for travel assistance to Tizen Dev Con.]

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