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my 5 cents on AGL and Tizen
Alison Chaiken <alison@...>
Automotive is important to the future of Linux, and AGL is important
to the future of automotive Linux, so please take my comments in that spirit. I *personally* support the AGL initiative and wish it success. Having said that, I share many of the concerns expressed by Todd Fuchs, Jeremiah Foster and Pete Popov. Moblin was a decent, pretty distro. MeeGo was even better in many ways, as evidenced by its continuing support by many vendors. Both of those projects were, in the end, failures. Tizen-IVI is Intel's new automotive initiative, and AGL is largely Tizen. Let us learn from the mistakes of the past so as not to repeat it! I don't have a problem with Tizen or Android as reference distros. They both are featureful, well-supported, under rapid development and modern in design. I notice that no one in AGL mentions Android as a possibility. Why not? I'd guess because Android is different in important ways from plain vanilla Linux, even as mainline unifies the Android kernel with the upstream one, as the userspaces are quite distinct. Also, Android is under the control of one vendor, and its governance body is not open. Now compare Tizen: looks very similar! And recall that Moblin and MeeGo failed in part because they were too much under the control of a few companies whom outsiders did not quite trust. I have used OBS, and I am impressed by EFL. However, these are not standard user-space choices any more than a Java-based runtime is. The idea that developers just want to code in HTML5 is short-sighted, as the many startups I talk to here in Silicon Valley want mostly to create telematics applications that offer services like remote door opening and state-of-charge reporting. I can't believe having followed the LayerManager and AudioManager and RadioTuner discussions in GENIVI that coders who want to talk to hardware (which is *most* of them) will be able to achieve the functionality they want using just HTML5. HTML5 would need significant extensions to work with GENIVI components. Contrary to what others have asserted, there is tremendous startup interest here in automotive: notice that the Silicon Valley Automotive Open Source Group I founded now has over 500 members, many of whom are entrepreneurs, angel investors or large adjacent businesses looking to make an acquisition. The hottest field is usage-based insurance, which is highly dependent on data from vehicular buses and ECUs. Why are Ubuntu and Android so popular? Because they are ISO-installable on standard hardware and have well-documented and useful build tools and maintained repos. Everyone knows that in most cases, Ubuntu or Android will "just work" rapidly, with minimum cost. What AGL should offer in order to be wildly successful is an installable ISO that runs under QEMU and AWS and has reasonably priced reference hardware with both x86 and ARM architectures. The ISO would include build tools, source packages and demo apps. If AGL is just a rebadged Tizen-IVI whose important discussions take place on tizen.org mailing lists, it will follow Moblin and MeeGo into the dustbin. I don't make this statement because I wish it to be so, but because I'm certain of it. At a bare minimum, AGL *must* support a plain vanilla Linux variant as CGL did, one that is not based on OBS or EFL. The Yocto-IVI layer produced by Holger Behrens and his team at Wind River strikes me as one obvious choice. Note that WR is a direct competitor to my employer, so my endorsement is based purely on a technical evaluation, not self-interest. Assuredly Mentor's or MontaVista's or Wind's plain-vanilla Linuxes would all be fine, as would Debian. The competition to Linux in automotive is QNX and Windows. Both of these are complete, simple-install bundles. AGL must be as easy to use in order to compete. I will not be at CES, but will attend Embedded Linux Conference and Linux Collaboration Summit, so let's talk if you will be at one of these conferences. Happy New Year, Alison -- Alison Chaiken alison@she-devel.com 650-279-5600 http://{she-devel.com, exerciseforthereader.org} A car is just four wheels, a few sofas, plus a lid and an engine. -- Li Shufu, founder of Geely Motors via Michael Dunne's _American Wheels, Chinese Roads_
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Juha-Matti Liukkonen <juha-matti.liukkonen@...>
Hi!
Alison, you make very good points. Let me comment on a couple specific ones. On 1.1.2013, at 1:27, Alison Chaiken <alison@...> wrote: What AGL should offer in order to be wildly successful is an Something to this effect is what we have been thinking as well. Also documentation plays an important role in making adoption easy: the adaptation layer (for HW) and HMI APIs (for apps) need to be well documented, with examples to get started from. And of course the run-time layer in between needs to be robust. At a bare minimum, AGL *must* It is also important to remember that the AGL initiative output is not distro-specific. The goal is to improve open source components that make up the platform, such that they are better suited for automotive use, going upstream first. Tizen may be our reference test and integration platform, but the results can certainly be integrated to e.g. Yocto based builds. Best regards, - Jussi -- Juha-Matti Liukkonen Technology Director, Embedded software
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Rudolf Streif <rstreif@...>
Thank you, Alison, for your contribution. Discussions like these help to shape AGL and it is good that we have them. We are just starting out with AGL and it will take many minds and hands to make it successful.
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My vision of AGL is summarized in these bullets:
I do agree with you that AGL's reference distribution needs to be an installable ISO that is well tested and runs out of the box on the reference hardware and hardware very similar to it and on QEMU. It needs to be very easy to use and very easy to adopt and port to new systems. I want AGL to be a full Linux OS stack that comes with great documentation and tooling so that can be as easily adopted and ported to new systems. It is the ease of use that makes Android so successful on mobile systems. People are talking a lot about Android in automotive systems but they are concerned about its technical limitations. I see AGL to be for automotive what Android is for mobile but without these limitations.
AGL needs a starting point. It does not make sense to spend a lot of resources to do yet another integration effort for a distribution. Tizen, building a system with the Yocto Project, WebOS, WRT, etc. are all valid options. However, none of them is where what AGL ultimately needs. They all have their unique advantages and disadvantages. Any Linux distribution is a collection of packages that are built and compiled into an image using a choice of tooling.
The distribution is a starting point because it will only get developers that far because sooner or later they are confronted with the task of modifying the distribution and adapting it and adding their own packages. For that they need the tooling and education on how to use it.
Reaktor and Jussi Liukkonen stepped up and provided instructions on how to get started with Tizen IVI and using the build tools. Pete Popov and Todd Fuchs (and probably others) picked it up and are now experiencing hurdles getting from source code to an image. I hope that we can improve the instructions based on those experiences. That is what we have the wiki for.
I would also love to see someone step up and provide instructions on how to build a stack using the Yocto Project and provide them on the wiki. The end result would be very similar to Tizen IVI since most Linux stacks are very comparable and it would provide developers with the opportunity to compare the different approaches of building a Linux software stack. I do not see it as conflict or too much fragmentation to have different ways of building AGL software stacks. In terms of package selections they can converge. They will all serve as a platform to build and improve on but cater to different needs of building and integrating.
In the end all of these stack will have the same technology gaps that AGL needs to close to make them ready for automotive prime time. All of these stacks will serve as a great platform to improve on. However, our focus must be on improving, documentation, tooling, etc. and not that much whether one solution is better than the other. There is no one-size-fits-all.
We do need people to step up and do actual work. We can discuss all day long but it is action and commitment that make the difference. In that spirit, kudos to Jussi, Pete and Todd who are actually doing that.
Rudi
On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Alison Chaiken <alison@...> wrote: Automotive is important to the future of Linux, and AGL is important --
Rudolf J. Streif Director of Embedded Solutions
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