LWN: Comments on "Looking forward to 2010"

Rip TTY layer to get rid of BKL?

trasz — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:38:08 +0000

Also, FreeBSD already dropped line discipline support. Kernel-based ppp (and pppd), already obsoleted due to userland ppp(8) being better in pretty much every aspect, was dropped earlier, so it wasn't an issue.

Rip TTY layer to get rid of BKL?

patrick_g — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:06:24 +0000

You're right. My answer was for cybernytrix.

Rip TTY layer to get rid of BKL?

nix — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:36:32 +0000

You misunderstand. I wasn't saying that it was impossible to get rid of
the BKL (or to rewrite the entire TTY layer, although that would be
horrible). What I was disputing was that it was possible to replace the
TTY layer with something in userspace, and that GNU screen would be of any
particular help there.

Rip TTY layer to get rid of BKL?

patrick_g — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:13:18 +0000

It's possible to get rid of the BKL because FreeBSD 8.0 did it.
Extract of the release notes :

"The FreeBSD TTY layer has been replaced with a new one which has better support for SMP and robust resource handling. A tty now has own mutex and it is expected to improve scalability when compared to the old implementation based on the Giant lock".

Rip TTY layer to get rid of BKL?

nix — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:17:23 +0000

No hope. GNU screen *relies on* the TTY layer, to be specific it's utterly
dependent on the proper function of PTYs. PTYs are, guess what, a kind of
TTY. The TTY layer's design (wired into countless apps nowadays and
required by POSIX) is a pretty typical example of BSD braindamage, in that
it has a horrendously incestuous relationship with critical parts of the
kernel's visible API, including things that are very hard to push out to
userspace, like the process relationship graph (process groups, sessions,
setsid()) and signal handling (SIGTSTP/SIGCONT, SIGTTIN/SIGTTOU, SIGINT,
special rules for delivery of signals to session leaders, and so on...)

But perhaps the concept of a line discipline and all that it implies can
eventually be ditched (it's used for pppd these days, but what else?)

Rip TTY layer to get rid of BKL?

cybernytrix — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:48:45 +0000

Regarding the BKL, the TTY layer seems to be one of the biggest culprits. Shouldn't it be possible to simply rip out the entire TTY layer from the kernel and spawn GNU screen to handle all the TTY multiplexing and other issues? What is the point of having the TTY layer in the kernel?

Android vs Maemo

wookey — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:07:58 +0000

Maemo is no longer all-Nokia. Mer is the generic version of Maemo, which has separated out the
Nokia-specific parts. I'm not quite sure how much hardware is currently supported, but certainly
SmartQ is one and others are in the pipeline (openmoko, airgoo and maybe balloon if I get my
finger out).

the problem is Apple's app store censorship

danieldk — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:13:19 +0000

But the flip-side is that it is one of the only phone platforms where developers can earn their living with relatively simple (sometimes too simple) applications. On many other platforms you may get away with navigation or office software, but I guess not much more than that...

Looking forward to 2010

dmag — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:37:08 +0000

> what is so painful about apple ? People dont seem to mind

If Apple had enforced a straightforward apps policy, you'd be right. There would only be a small fringe grumbling about the fact that "Apple has too much control over iPhone apps". The 'gilded cage' that iPhone users are in would have been completely invisible to them.

Instead, millions of people got introduced to the concept that "Apple controls your iPhone".

- Apple decided to de-list some approved apps and delete the app off of people's phones.

- Apple rejected the app of a popular band with millions of fans, (worse, Apple changed their minds and approved the app because of the protests. This caused people dig up more dirt on the "Apple has too much control" story.)
http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?59,651569

Looking forward to 2010

jospoortvliet — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:05:55 +0000

I completely agree. I like it a lot.

Android

MattPerry — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:49:18 +0000

> Compared to Apple, who retains tight control over the hardware and will
> offer OS upgrades for older handsets as long as the hardware can support
> it.

Don't forget that Apple is also a hardware vendor, and it's in their best interest to have you purchase new hardware as often as possible.

Android

giraffedata — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:31:18 +0000

But aren't there common products in the US that are offered only with 2 year commitments? ISTR AT&T/Apple sell their i-phone that way.

I think the laws in the US differ on the ability to have long term phone service contracts. I know for a while at the beginning of the wireless phone era, in California it was not possible for a consumer to commit to any phone service at all in exchange for a handset.

BTW, I think it's misleading to view it as getting a $600 phone for $200. Even California sales tax law doesn't look at it that way -- the sales tax due is based on a $600 selling price (CA sales tax applies to hardware, but not phone service). The healthy way to look at it is as a phone service bundle that includes a handset and 2 years of service, with a $200 upfront payment and the rest spread over 2 years. As opposed to buying them separately, which involves a $600 initial outlay.

I'm not entirely sure why companies that offer month-to-month service demand the same monthly price as for the bundle, but it may be because they expect service prices to go down over the next two years and it may be because they expect customers to switch around and it costs lots of money to re-acquire a customer. IOW the commitment itself is worth $400.

Looking forward to 2010

Quazatron — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:51:16 +0000

I was going to upvote you, but then I realized this is LWN.
I like it, it adds credibility to the posts.

Android

marcH — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:51:27 +0000

> No carrier in the USA forces anybody to do anything. People volunteer for it since they can do things like get a 600 dollar phone for 200 dollars.

Same in Europe.

> Once you agree to a contract then it's a contract.

Merely signing a contract is not enough to make its content legal. If some country decides for consumer protection that phone contracts can never, ever be longer than 1 year, then you can sign whatever you want and legally cancel the contract after 1 year. I guess that's what Zenith meant about the 6 months limit in Denmark.

Although at a much different money scale, such a consumer protection law is similar to... forbidding subprime loans: a very strange idea implemented in some European countries.

Looking forward to 2010

pebolle — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:14:17 +0000

My predictions for 2010:

* As the Fedora 14 features are decided, we'll see that Fedora will get another desktop environment added, and a few hundreds of new packages, and yet another programming language. Fedora users will therefore see, almost by definition, a decline in average quality of Fedora packages, and they'll spend more time in updates by yum, use an even slower Fedora bugzilla, etc.;
* GNOME 3 will be released, but it will still lack a slogan, a catch phrase, a three line summary, etc. that allows users, and even developers, to finally see the point of GNOME 3. (Full disclosure: I'm a small time contributor to GNOME);
* the SCO saga will implode; no one will pick up their (its?) non-physical assets (copyrights, whatever) to continue SCO's futile legal fight: those assets are basically worthless by now;
* None of the major non-commercial distributions will decide to focus on a subset of the many things they try to do now (ie, they will not decide: "We'll only do $DESKTOP for $ARCH0, $ARCH1, and $ARCH2).

Sandboxing - already here

dwheeler — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:25:58 +0000

I agree that there will be *more* sandboxing. In many ways that is happening already. The first version of SELinux with Fedora didn't work well, because it tried to constrain everything. Now, SELinux imposes relatively few constraints on many apps; instead, for a few specific applications it creates a much more constrained environment when the app is run, and I would call that a sandbox too.

Looking forward to 2010

SEJeff — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:15:06 +0000

It is likely not Jon's goal to turn you on. Just saying

Android

rickmoen — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:24:17 +0000

Those are hardly the only major problems with Android on mobile phones. Here's your most damning summary, a presentation on the subject by Matt Porter, shown at Embedded Linux Conference Europe. Tidbits from it:

Non-standard replacement from glibc (Bionic, derived from BSD)
No pthreads
No SysV IPC
No real kernel-headers, just "scrubbed" headers that require tortuous workarounds.
No udev, and instead something really wacky hacked into init (no hotplug)
HAL substitute, vold, has problems with USB mass storage
Other USB support is sometimes also problematic on account of input-device hacks

There are lots of other reasons cited why Android is poorly maintained and portable only with difficulty.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

Android

drag — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:52:22 +0000

I really don't care personally.

The way fees add up and the costs of the company is not really clear cut.

It is certainly cheaper, as I partially pointed out above, to have people in long term contracts even though they may pay the same amount of money as a person with a monthly contract.

Also one of the big deals about selling a subsidized phone is that the carrier installs restrictive and custom firmware on it. These firmwares are designed to 'encourage' users to use services that cost extra.

So in that way customers using custom firmwares are more profitable then customers using retail. So that is another reason for the subsidy that is not going to show up in when you compare rates.

If you want to do government action on it then more laws is not the answer. The only reason wireless carriers are able to be assholes to their customers is because the USA government has handed over monopoly access to the most useful parts of the radio spectrum.

Any significant amounts of regulation is not going to hurt them or help you one bit. Instead what it is going to do is raise the barrier of entry for competing companies; therefore allowing these corporations to get away with being even bigger assholes.

I work in a heavily regulated industry so I know for a fact that is what happens. The corporations are so heavily regulated that they pretty much do whatever the fuck they want with no serious repercussions. If any of these companies ever decided to leave the market then the government would be completely screwed... why? Because there is nobody stupid enough with millions and millions of dollars and years of time to blow on building a infrastructure that can meet the requirements the government has set up. It's now impossible for any new corporation to enter the market so the existing ones can do pretty much anything they want as long as it's not blatantly illegal.

As far as cell phone carriers go if you make this sort of behavior illegal they will just find some other way to screw people over. And you know what the catcher is? People volunteer for it. From what I can tell most people overwhelming prefer to get into 2 year contracts. Who are you to say that they are not allowed to do this if they want to? Why should they not be able to trade some liberty for cheap smart phones?

The best way you can do things is talk with your cash and convince others to agree with you. That is a lot more effective way to control the corporations then your votes are to control the government. And if you want to have more control then tell the FCC to open up the radio spectrum and get rid of the DRM-ish restrictions on radios.

Android

mjg59 — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:49:32 +0000

T-mobile's new plans give an ~$20 discount if you don't have a subsidised phone.

Android

quotemstr — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:20:10 +0000

If that's true, why don't I get a discount on a plan for buying my own phone without a subsidy? Why isn't the subsidy (more like a lease) a separate line item on the bill? Why can (and do) phone companies arbitrarily increase termination fees for existing customers?

That's not fair-and-square assistance with getting the phone. That's MBA-begotten corporate malfeasance, and it ought to be illegal.

Android

drag — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:00:53 +0000

No carrier in the USA forces anybody to do anything. People volunteer for it since they can do things like get a 600 dollar phone for 200 dollars. Once you agree to a contract then it's a contract.

If you don't want to do that you can just pay monthly rates and buy phones at full retail price. It's just not that normal to do that. Most people just assume that you have to sign a contract; but that is mostly because carriers don't promote monthly plans and people are too lazy to do research on their own.

Usually most carriers you can choose 'pay as you go' (aka prepaid plans), 'monthly contract', or 1-2 year contract.

Usually it's not worth it to do prepaid unless you only use your phone rarely. Probably monthly makes sense for most people that buy their phone at full retail.

It's not to the point were you can run into any store and buy a disposable SIM card just yet (you can, but it's not common), but as the economy declines and people cut back on luxury spending then it'll probably be more like Europe.

Android vs Maemo

halla — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:09:16 +0000

I wouldn't know about scientific -- but I so love my n900. I haven't even
coded for it or anything yet, but the apps are lovely, the keyboard is
much better than the n810's, connectivity is great -- and, of course, and
xterm with ssh is much nicer than putty on the E72.

Android

Zenith — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:51:56 +0000

You are not allowed to lock people into 2-year contracts everywhere, though. In Denmark 6 months is the maximum for private persons, while business can be locked for 1 or 2 years I think it is.

Android vs Maemo

corbet — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:19:39 +0000

As an interesting data point, here's a usability survey of ten smartphones. At #2 on the list was the iPhone; #1 was the N900. The best Android phone came in at #5. To say that the survey is unscientific is to be charitable, but it's still perhaps worth a look.

Android vs Maemo

drag — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:17:18 +0000

In the USA market Nokia is not so hot, but in the world smartphone market
Symbian phones still outsell pretty much everybody else combined.

Maemo may have a chance world-wide, but in the USA it has a low chance of
success in the foreseeable future.

Android

drag — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:54:22 +0000

The carriers use handset subsidies as ways to lock people into 2 year
service contracts, which are much more lucrative and attractive to creditors
then month by month payments.

(If you can guarantee to people that you will have a X amount of dollars in
a given time period that lowers the cost of obtaining more investment and it
changes how things are accounted on the books)

So, no. Carriers think they benefit from this upgrade train also.

Now in reality a happy customer is a paying customer. If they have a
positive feel and think they get good benefits from your service they will
naturally be more loyal and be willing to spend more money... but this is
not how a typical American executive thinks.. They are consumers and not
customers and your job is to just milk them for all they are worth.

Looking forward to 2010

TRS-80 — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:10:20 +0000

Those aren't long shots. A long shot is Xen dom0 support getting into the mainline kernel, something I would have predicted to happen last year.

Android

gnb — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:43:35 +0000

>They want to use newer and improved software to compel consumers to buy new
>hardware...
Certainly true from the handset maker's pov, but in places where it's common
for the carrier to subsidise the handset and make back the money on the
contract software upgrades seem quite attractive as a way of keeping
customers happy (and hence paying) without spending all that money on new
hardware. So they have an incentive to apply pressure for handsets to be
supported at least for some number of updates.

Looking forward to 2010

blitzkrieg3 — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:42:32 +0000

Meh, I think it's a bit smug.

George Carlin said it best

Looking forward to 2010

drag — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:22:25 +0000

For the people that I know that use their iPhone the ability to jailbreak it
is a requirement for making the phone useful. This may not be typical, but
certainly eliminating the troublesome restrictions creates a huge increase
in the utility of the thing.

Android vs Maemo

man_ls — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Yes, here Nokia has a lot of market share in the traditional mobile market. Not so much in smartphones, but the N900 might change that. It is not popular yet though.

Looking forward to 2010

schutz — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:22:39 +0000

I am a not a big fan of "me too" comments, but I would not like to miss an opportunity to congratulare the LWN staff: I really enjoy their writing style, including (and especially) the "third person" way of writing.

Android

SimonKagstrom — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:50:47 +0000

I hope it will be. I've just recently bought a Samsung Spica (I believe it's called Moment in the US), and whether it will get upgrades is still a matter of speculation and rumors.

Unfortunately, as Drag says there is not much incentive for Samsung and other phone producers to upgrade software for existing phones. The Apple Iphone is obviously much better in that respect, perhaps since Apple get revenue from owners that buy apps and itune songs. Not like that with Android.

Of course the best thing would be if the devices were open enough for people to modify the installations by themselves.

I took a look at the kernel source code for the Samsung Spica by the way, and unfortunately it very much looks like a hack to get the phone out in time - much of it would be quite difficult to get mainlined. Still, Samsung seems to be moving in the right direction at least.

Looking forward to 2010

clugstj — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:20:50 +0000

As long as we're being pedantic, I think his name is Jonathan (the same as mine), not Johnathan.

the problem is Apple's app store censorship

zander76 — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:59:25 +0000

Not to mention try doing any type of size optimization to your executable on an iphone and its security layer will make sure it never runs. Such a pain since they also have an over the air limit of 10 meg.

Looking forward to 2010

zander76 — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:56:11 +0000

Slackware takes over the world.. :)

Looking forward to 2010

Cato — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:56:02 +0000

The fact that a lot of ordinary people jailbreak their iPhones shows that
openness is something that they at least want - it's not that easy to
jailbreak since Apple keeps closing the loopholes, but there's a lot of
demand for DIY and commercial jailbreaks.

Android

Zenith — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:53:42 +0000

This could be turned around to a selling point:
- We provide updates to older phones!

While not as flashy as "look, we have the newest and shiniest phones", it is hopefully a sales point worth mentioning.

But granted, this only affects the buying process, and does nothing to capitalize on existing users.

Android vs Maemo

rfunk — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:49:25 +0000

Android has a much larger mindshare than Maemo. It runs on devices from
multiple vendors (predominantly HTC and Motorola), and it benefits from
marketing not only by Google, but also by multiple phone carriers. (At least
in the US.)

Maemo is all-Nokia, and is pretty much unheard-of in the US. Even Nokia
itself hasn't have much mindshare in the US anymore, though it had more a
decade ago.

I'm sure the story is different in Europe though.