Quotes of the week [LWN.net]

The fact that there is demand for a collaborative project on a common kernel tree to carry features for the embedded folks suggests they are already feeling the pain themselves.

What is missing is the realization that we already have such a tree, where everybody (not just the embedded folks) are collaborating on features.

The upstream kernel.

— Rik van Riel

Actually what you did with SoC vendors from Chrome OS and stating clearly that upstream presence is a factor in procurement was the *only* thing I have ever seen that actually works to change the behaviour of an entire company, apart from dedicated individuals on the inside of the companies. [...]

The day the Android people say that for a Nexus(-ish) device it's gonna be all upstream kernel and they will pick the SoC that delivers that, then things will happen.

— Linus Walleij

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Quotes of the week

Posted Sep 9, 2016 19:36 UTC (Fri) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (2 responses)

Linus W is right. Google could go and clean up their ecosystem but they won't. They would be best served by dogmatically doing what we've done on ARM servers with standards - force everyone else to move in the correct direction.

Quotes of the week

Posted Sep 12, 2016 12:46 UTC (Mon) by broonie (subscriber, #7078) [Link] (1 responses)

...and then get slammed with antitrust stuff most likely (and not solve any of the problems with the carriers either).

This is not something you can realistically do top down without offering something of value to pull people in - there were historically mobile OSs that attempted to do something standards based but they failed in part because they were too slow and lumbering to cope with the diversity of what people wanted to ship in a reasonable timeframe, the tier one vendors really can cope with this stuff by themselves where they want to (and IME have done) so it's hard to see them paying top down costs that make them more reliant on the whims of the OS vendor again.

Where you're more likely to gain traction with something like this is the more white label end of the market where people are doing much less customization of the system so they're already very reliant on external vendors but that'd need someone to offer useful software & update services.

Quotes of the week

Posted Sep 12, 2016 12:53 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

I feel like a clause of "your components must not infringe the GPL" wouldn't really be taken as a monopolistic action. After all, it just says "don't break the law" but in language which is much harder for lawyers to weasel around.

Quotes of the week

Posted Sep 10, 2016 5:14 UTC (Sat) by swmike (guest, #57335) [Link]

This is a problem in many spaces, in home router, IoT devices etc. There are so many proprietary patches made against the kernel that then have to be maintained by the company itself. Yes, upstreaming takes time and work, but when you've done that work, now you're done (forever). You don't have to re-do the work again next time one of your customers demand support for a newer kernel.