Re: [fedora-arm] ARM summit at Plumbers 2011
russell, good to hear from you. can i recommend, that although this is a really wide set of cross-posting on a discussion that underpins pretty much everything (except gnu/hurd and minix) because it's linux kernel, that, just as steve kindly advised, we keep this to e.g. cross-dis...@lists.linaro.org? i'll be doing that from now on [after this] perhaps including arm-netbooks as well, but will be taking off all the distros. so - folks, let's be clear: please move this discussion to cross-dis...@lists.linaro.org, and, if it's worthwhile discussing in person, please do contact steve, so he can keep the slot open at the Plumbers 2011 summit. On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote: > On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 11:11:41AM -0500, Bill Gatliff wrote: >> As such refactoring consolidated larger and larger chunks of kernel >> code, new designs would gravitate towards those consolidated >> implementations because they would be the dominant references. > > Don't bet on it. That's not how it works (unfortunately.) > > Just look at the many serial port inventions dreamt up by SoC designers - > everyone is different from each other. Now consider: why didn't they use > a well established standard 16550A or later design? *sigh* because they wanted to save power. or pins. or... just be bloody-minded. > This "need to be different" is so heavily embedded in the mindset of the > hardware people that I doubt "providing consolidated implementations" > will make the blind bit of difference. i think... russell... after they are told, repeatedly, "no, you can't have that pile of junk in the mainline linux kernel, Get With The Programme", you'd think that, cumulatively if they end up having to maintain a 6mb patch full of such shit, they _might_ get with the programme? and if they don't, well who honestly cares? if they don't, it's not *your* problem, is it? _they_ pay their employees to continue to main a pile of junk, instead of spongeing off of _your_ time (and linus's, and everyone else's in the Free Software Community). > I doubt that hardware people > coming up with these abominations even care one bit about what's in > the kernel. then don't f**g make it _your_ problem, or anyone else's, upstream!! :) this is the core of the proposal that i have been advocating: if it's "selfish", i.e. as bill and many many others clearly agree with "if the bang-per-buck ratio is on the low side" then keep it *out* the mainline linux kernel... ... and that really is the end of the matter. the sensible people that i've been talking to about this are truly puzzled as to why the principles of "cooperation and collaboration" behind free software are just being... completely ignored, in something as vital as The Linux Kernel, and they feel that it's really blindingly obvious that the "bang-per-buck" ratio of patches to mainline linux kernel need to go up. so the core of the proposal that is the proposed "selfish-vs-cooperation patch policy" is quite simple: if the patch has _some_ evidence of collaboration, cooperation, refactoring, sharing - *anything* that increases the bang-per-buck ratio with respect to the core fundamental principles of Free Software - it goes to the next phase [which is technical evaluation etc. etc.]. otherwise, it's absolutely out, regardless of its technical correctness, and that's the end of it. the linux kernel mainline source tree should *not* be a dumping-ground for a bunch of selfish self-centred pathological profit-mongering corporations whose employees end up apologising in sheer embarrassment as they submit time-pressured absolutely shit non-cooperative and impossible-to-maintain code. you're not the only one, russell, who is pissed off at having to tidy up SoC vendors' patches. there's another ARM-Linux guy, forget his name, specialises in samsung: two years ago he said that he was getting fed up with receiving yet another pile of rushed junk... and that's *just* him, specialising in samsung ARM SoCs! we're just stunned that you, the recipient of _multiple_ SoC vendors piles of shite, have tolerated this for so long! anyway - i've endeavoured to put together some examples, in case that's not clear: i admit it's quite hard to create clear examples, and would greatly appreciate help doing so. i've had some very much appreciated help from one of the openwrt developers (thanks!) clarifying by creating another example that's similar to one which wasn't clear. http://lkcl.net/linux/linux-selfish.vs.cooperation.html this should be _fun_, guys. it shouldn't be a chore. if you're not enjoying it, and not being paid, tell the people who are clearly taking the piss to f*** off! but - i also would like to underscore this with another idea: "lead by example" (which is why i've kept the large cross-distro list) we - the free software community - are seeing tons of nice lovely android tablets, tons of nice lovely expensive bits of big iron and/or x86 l
Re: [fedora-arm] ARM summit at Plumbers 2011
On Tue, Aug 09, 2011 at 07:15:34PM +0100, Steve McIntyre wrote: >Hi folks, > >Following on from the founding of the cross-distro ARM mailing list, >I'd like to propose an ARM summit at this year's Linux Plumbers >conference [1]. I'm hoping for a slot on Thursday evening, but this >remains to be confirmed at this point. > >We had some lively discussion about the state of ARM Linux distros at >the Linaro Connect [2] event in Cambridge last week. It rapidly became >clear that some of the topics we discussed deserve a wider audience, >so we're suggesting a meetup at Plumbers for that bigger >discussion. ok. allow me to give some perspective and background as to why i believe that a bigger discussion is important, and to whom that discussion is important. a few years ago i read what seems like a silly book, called "The Strategy-Focussed Organisation". sounds trite, but i was advised to read it when i proposed some ideas and was confronted with the very valid question "why should i [a lowly "developer"] _care_ about this 'strategy' that you are proposing?" (fortunately the person who asked the question was the same one who advised me to read this "silly" book). it's a tough one, isn't it? why should any of us - as free software developers - _care_ about the state of ARM Linux? you're getting on with the truly crucial task of managing the distro that you're committed to. it's a focussed job: it's a vital role, and you should not let anyone tell you otherwise. yet... and this is the bit that this silly book explained: it's just as important to know where *your* role "fits in" with what else is going on. linaro, for example, as you no doubt well know, is tasked (by its subscribers who pay $1m / year) with sorting out vital underlying infrastructure that ties what *you* are doing in with the subscriber's ARM CPUs. you're doing the user-facing stuff; they're doing the CPU-facing stuff. that's *their* strategic role: in concrete terms it means sorting out gcc with ARM optimisations, and it means seeking out and/or increasing the number of areas of shared and refactored code across as many places as possible, in order to reduce the software development effort required of their subscribers. linux kernel. device tree. LSB. (and, it has to be said, _if_ the stupid, stupid 3D GPU companies got with the picture, linaro could well take gallium3d for example under its wing, too). so the key question is: if linaro is "taking care of" this aspect, because that's linaro's role, then why _should_ any distro maintainer care? yes they should be aware of what's happening, but there's no real incentive to get pro-actively involved, is there? all that's required is passive acceptance of the work filtering down from linaro... and this perhaps explains the lack of response to the proposed meetup, steve. [the other reason is that yes, although _discussion_ can take place about 3D GPUs, we as free software developers feel "powerless to act" in the face of so much money. despite the fact (which personally makes me extremely angry) that without our overall contribution these companies simply would not have a gnu/linux distro or a linux kernel on which to make that money]. so, the important question to ask, then, is what *is* good motivation to take action? if, indeed, any action need be taken at all, which is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to reach. not that i personally agree with that, but i can live with it :) and, to answer that question, i feel it's important to take into account some context and background. many of these things you will already be aware of, but let me put them all together, here. take a deep breath... * with the rise of android, Matt Codon shows us an empirical glimpse into the blatant state of GPL violations by OEMs taking place on the Linux Kernel and more: http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/android_tablets/ * many android vendors have lost the right to use linux kernel source code. this article is the most insightful and non-aggrandising i've yet found into the GPL violations situation and its consequences: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/08/most-android-vendors-lost-their-linux.html * Our Linus declared in april that he was getting fed up with the state of the ARM Linux Kernel. my take on this is that there is an overwhelming amount of "selfishness" creeping into the Linux Kernel development. Our Linus has also recently stated that his passion is actually low-level device driver development. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1114495/focus=112007 * Russell King, the ARM maintainer, has completely lost all motivation to work on the task of merging ARM Linux patches. with the amount of selfishness that has been going on for so many years, i am surprised he's tolerated it this long. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1121096 * I've seen proposed solutions and many many descriptions of the problems caused by the rise of ARM Linux, but none of them look at this f
Re: ARM 3D support was Re: [fedora-arm] ARM summit at Plumbers 2011
[ok i'm going to do another cross-post in a bit which will give some background and also perhaps some other topics for discussion, but i wanted to cover this first. apologies for people for whom this is just noise] On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 7:01 PM, wrote: >> the xilinx zynq-7000 or similar (dual core Cortex A9 + FPGA). The idea >> is to have an OGP GPU in firmware in FPGA. In terms of the power budget, >> it seems to work relatively sanely considering what it is, and it is as >> ideal as it gets as far as openness and flexibility goes. >> >> I just thought it's worthy of a mention. > > It does seem outlandish, but it is kind of cool. Is it going to give enough > 3d speed? The next gen tegra is supposed to have a 24 core GPU. if nvidia have a published announcement of their plans to release a fully free-software-compliant 3D driver to match the proprietary hardware, then that would be brilliant news [about their next gen GPU]. about the zynq idea: it actually doesn't matter if it's "enough". the very fact that free software developers - and people who want to be free software developers - around the world could even _remotely_ consider buying one of these for an affordable price instead of $750 for the present OGP card means that more people can at least begin to try to address the unbelievably wide and very discouraging gap between us and proprietary 3D hardware. the NREs on producing a set of masks are _only_ $250,000 if you are a taiwanese company asking TSMC, but for everyone else they're at least $2 million. the development costs if you use off-the-shelf tools before you even _get_ to the point where you can ask a fab to produce those masks spiral out of control (Mentor Graphics charges something like $250,000 per month or maybe per week per user; NREs for peripheral hard macros can be $50k to $100k each etc. etc.), taking the total development costs in many cases to well above $USD 30 million. and that's excluding all that "proprietary software" which of course is utterly useless without the corresponding hardware but, because of USA Accountancy Rules, where "IP" can be added to the books to increase the value of a company, there's a strong financial disincentive to consider just "givvin it aww away 4 fwee". and here we are with a CPU which could well be around the $25 - $30 mark in large enough volumes, presented with the possibility to say " u all, you proprietary GPU companies and your greed, fear, patent warfare and lack of willingness to collaborate and cooperate". ok maybe not those exact words but you know what i mean :) l. -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Does anyone care about LSB on arm?
On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Wookey wrote: > In my experience anyone distributing binaries actually picks a small > set of distros and builds for those explicitly, rather than relying > on the LSB. Does that mean that it's not actually useful in the real > world? I guess in a sense this posting is to the wrong lists; we're > all free software people here who have little use for the LSB. Where > do the proprietary software distributors hang out :-) the proprietary software distributors hang out around USA lawyer offices, where they get advice on how to perform tivoisation without anybody noticing. they then ship TVs and even 3G modems with embedded linux kernels and custom OSes... and nobody notices. my take on this is that ARM is still just emerging from the "uselessness" of sub-600mhz ARM9s and ARM11s as far as general-purpose computing is concerned [laptop / desktop etc. *not* true embedded purposes obviously: don't get upset, ARM employees, because "mr LKCL said your processors were quotes useless quotes" - read it again: it's a *conditional* description]. also, the sheer diversity of SoCs plays directly, psychologically, against anyone "joining forces" on things like LSB. thus the majority of proprietary software distributors up until recently have been doing custom-built from scratch software stacks [using e.g. buildroot, openembedded] and thus LSB was and still is completely useless to them. even android is custom-built, and everything (except the highly-optimised apps - for ARM - which are becoming more common) is a java app. that having been said, 500mhz+ Dual-Core Cortex A9s already out which knock the stuffing out of 1.6ghz Intel Atoms (yes, saw the youtube video) mean that could just be about to change, completely. sooo... although the situation *right now* is that nobody in the commercial world is the slightest bit interested in LSB because they all do "custom builds" of complete software stacks, it could be said that *if* the free software community just dropped ready-to-go LSB standards in front of their noses, they'd quite likely use it. you have to remember that the majority of these companies could not put two lines of code together to save their lives. they literally have to be spoon-fed (in some cases even to the point of being told where to put the screws, let alone the software). they are usually spoon-fed by the CPU manufacturer [and in the case of MStar Semi, they won't even let *you* violate the GPL, they do it entirely for you]. so in that regard, i think it's more a case of "if the free software community provides LSB across ARM, it'll get used". so in _that_ regard, the question becomes: "are the efforts of the free software community better off being spent elsewhere"? and "what benefit is there *TO THE FREE SOFTWARE COMMUNITY* of doing LSB for ARM"? forget the proprietary junkies, they'll suck anything from us that moves and not give a dime in return. l. -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
