| Linux movers and shakers seek common ground |
Jun. 18, 2007
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. -- At the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit held at the Googleplex last week, Linux developers, IHVs (independent hardware vendors), and ISVs (independent software vendors) hashed out their differences in an attempt to find common ground.
Hardware issues
Hardware, as ever, remains a pain point for Linux developers and users.
Speaking to a matter near and dear to many Linux desktop users, Chris DiBona, Google's open-source program manager, said, "I would love to get either NVIDIA or ATI to actually give us the specs on the drivers we want or let's just reverse engineer everything and do it ourselves. I would like to see you guys [the Linux developers] do that. ... Then, people would say 'Oh well there are free drivers out there, more people are using it, we'll open source our drivers, and so the users will use our driver and at least get the best experience.'"
Unfortunately, even with DiBona seeing two of NVIDIA executives every week at their gym and telling them, "You guys have got to open this up because it will just get uglier and uglier and uglier." Neither ATI nor NVIDIA came to the meeting, and from discussions at the gathering, neither seems interested in doing more for the Linux community than they already are doing.
One area where we can look forward to some improvement is power management. Andrew Morton, a leading Linux kernel developer and the production kernel manager, said that, "Today most power management in Linux is still binary. A device is either on or off. But, many vendors are now providing low power or reduced power states."
Morton said that the development community is working hard on improving Linux's power-management. As always, though, to make that happen sooner rather than later, Linux device developers need -- if not access to the actual device code -- at least the device specifications.
Jesse Barnes, a Linux developer from Intel, added that while Intel, as everyone agreed, has been putting resources into power management, "We don't have enough and we need other vendors to step up."
For situations where a vendor isn't willing to put its own resources into making drivers or opening up its architecture for developers, leading Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman reiterated that he has 85 driver writers standing by, ready to write drivers for vendor-contributed devices, so long as they also provide specifications. He also added that Linux device developers are willing to work under NDA (non-disclosure agreements), if need be, to create device drivers.
The Linux Foundation also announced at the conference the arrival of the Linux Standard Base Driver Development Kit (LSB DDK) for print drivers.
The DDK provides the tools and resources for printer manufacturers to easily support all Linux distributions with one driver package. This release also streamlines printer support and functionality for end users through the addition of a web API from the OpenPrinting database. This API will be supported by all major Linux distributions and will allow Linux printer setup tools to automatically find and download printer driver packages, even when there is no local driver available in the distribution.
According to Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, "The LSB print driver development kit is exactly the kind of work we can expedite as a united community of developers, vendors and users. We all know we have to make it extremely easy for printing manufacturers to target Linux. This kit will reduce the effort it takes for them to take advantage of the tremendous opportunity Linux represents, and will help users 'just print' while using the Linux desktop and printer of their choice."
Till Kamppeter, manager of the Linux Foundation's OpenPrinting.org working group, added, "One of the most important new functionalities is the addition of the web API for the OpenPrinting database. Setting up printers that are not supported by the local distributions will no longer be a problem."
The OpenPrinting and LSB (Linux Standard Base) working groups are working with printing and distribution vendors to support the broadest variety of printer models. All major Linux distributions are planning to equip their printer setup tools with the LSB DDK in future releases.
The DDK is available for download from the Linux Foundation's website, here.
Software issues
ISVs have their own problems with Linux. These can be summed up as:- Standardization
- Better development tools
The standardization problem starts with the fact that the different distributions -- SUSE, Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc. -- are on different upgrade cycles. Each of these, in turn, is longer than the kernel's rapid-fire update cycle. In addition, there's no certainty which version of a library will be in which distribution, or for that matter, even be in the same place in the directory structure.
As several people at the conference observed, it's no wonder that ISVs usually develop only for Red Hat and SUSE Linux, or at most they'll add Debian or Ubuntu to the list. It's just too much trouble to develop -- never mind support -- software for so many slightly different versions of the same operating system.
Ed Costello, senior software development manager for Adobe Flash, put it simply, "We need something we can target like the LSB (Linux Standard Base)." Brian Aker, a prominent MySQL architect, added that Linux is difficult to test on because the kernels in different distributions have different bugs.
Costello spoke for many Linux ISVs when he said, "We try to make Adobe Flash backwards compatibile with older systems, but Linux is hard to test on. So, we only test on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 and SUSE Linux. We need Linux to give us a hard list of libraries and versions that are guaranteed to be supported" from version to version and distribution to distribution, and "then Linux becomes much more attractive."
Although LSB may be a big part of the answer, ISVs don't think it goes far enough. Dan Kegel, a software developer for Google, presented a wish list for Linux desktop development (PDF Link) at the conference. The list read:- file manager: xdg-open-folder-highlight-file
- screen saver interface: xdg-add-screensaver
- web: xdg-add-mimetype, xdg-add-protocol
- pkg manager interface: xdg-add-trusted-repo
- 32 bit library pkgs on 64 bit ubuntu
- Stable, fast CJK fonts
- Stable OpenSSL ABI
- Easier inotify (cf. FindFirstChangeNotification)
Once more we can see the theme of standardization. The "xdg" referenced here refers to the Portland Group's xdg-utilities. These utilities provide a set of common interfaces for GNOME and KDE desktops.
Noting the current challenge to ISVs trying to make money from Linux, software developer Mike Milinkovich, who is the executive Director of Eclipse.org, brought down the house with, "If you're a small ISV and your only platform is Linux, it sucks to be you." In short, for ISVs, platform standardization remains a significant hurdle. It is, however, one that the Linux Foundation is addressing.
On the other hand, development tools continue to not make the grade as far as ISVs are concerned -- and that may be more of a long-term problem.
Aker suggested that, "An application developer that you just give gcc to will look at you like you're nuts. They want application development frameworks. Linux has nothing close to what Microsoft has to offer developers. We need better tools."
In general, the developers agreed that what IBM has done with Eclipse is wonderful, but it's not enough. Unfortunately, the group agreed that there's no money to be made in tools. This has resulted in Linux having nothing to match the tools and development frameworks that Microsoft offers in Visual Studio.
There are efforts afoot to correct this situation with the LDN (LSB Developer Network), but the LDN needs much more work to be truly useful, it was agreed.
The need is certainly there, noted Aker. He is of the opinion that "four years ago it was easier to support Linux [as an ISV]. The Linux threads change even now is still a nightmare for ISVs after four years." As a result, "people are now talking about using OpenSolaris because of Linux's threads problems."
Something of a debate between the Linux kernel developers and the ISVs developed at this point. The upshot of this was that they were going to nail down exactly what the problems were with Linux's current threading model, and address them.
When all was said and done, the overall feeling at the conference was that progress could, and will, be made by ISVs, IHVs, and Linux developers working together. It might not be easy at times, but the movers and shakers of Linux are determined to make it happen.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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