[Mageia-dev] [fedora-arm] ARM summit at Plumbers 2011

Wed Aug 24 15:41:36 CEST 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 from an "overview" perspective, which is that the core of the
+problem is lack of cooperation and collaboration - precisely counter
+to the whole purpose of Free Software.  here, i hope and believe, is a
+small insight into that, along with some references and links:
+http://lkcl.net/linux/linux-selfish.vs.cooperation.html
+
+* an attempt last year to motivate people to get together to buy an
+early ARM Laptop (the CT-PC89E) which would have been available at the
+time in mass-volume for $102, the design of which turned out to be
+sponsored by China Telecom, found more than just GPL violations on the
+Linux Kernel and u-boot source code.  from this chinese factory (who
+were purely hardware assemblers and middle-men.  girls actually) one
+of the ICs responsible for keyboard and mouse was "black" - no
+markings; the gnu/linux distribution "mid-linux.com" was *also* a
+GPL-violating distro which may have links to China's Great Firewalled
+"Red Flag" Linux; the ODM (who licensed the design from China Telecom)
+was instructed to offer us nothing more than China Telecom 3G CDMA
+modems (useless for Europe which needs UMTS); successful
+reverse-engineering of a linux kernel onto the device encountered
+evidence of "security" attempts to lock the GPL-violating kernel to
+the device (which we easily replaced); when my associate presented
+Debian GNU/Linux running on the device at a meeting with the ODM and
+told them it had an entirely GPL-compliant and entirely Free GNU/Linux
+Distro on it, which we wanted to sell across the world, they went very
+very quiet.  lastly, Frans, who created the Debian Installer Port for
+the 20 people who bought the CT-PC89E samples, is dead.  by suicide.
+i leave these as facts - stated facts - and allow YOU to sift through
+them and choose which ones to put together, to make your own
+conclusion(s).  they may OR MAY NOT be related.
+
+* the FreedomBox Foundation has a clearly-stated goal, to create the
+software around small boxes that provide "transition" technology off
+of non-free and privacy-invasive servers that are all too tempting for
+corporations and governments to interfere with or peek at... yet there
+is a clear disconnect and a very wide gap between stating the goal and
+actually taking any action to go about creating the software, which
+has clearly not been addressed.  The Elephant is in the room, here...
+
+* the UK government was praised by China for looking into possible
+censorship of the Internet:
+http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/08/16/0019248/China-Praises-UK-Internet-Censorship-Plan
+http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/08/22/217206/Twitter-To-Meet-With-UK-Government-About-Riots
+
+* amongst many other things, the USA continues to take illegal control
+of DNS zones, destroying the trust and sovereignty of the very fabric
+of the Internet.
+
+* nokia (who received a $EUR 0.5 billion loan from the European
+Investment Bank just a few years ago) - our darlings who were using
+debian as the basis for their smartphone strategy - bought the
+proprietary and non-community-driven late-GPL-releasing Trolltech, and
+then recently pulled out of meego _and_ the open-sourcing of Series 60
+and out of free software entirely with the famous "burning platform"
+quote from their CEO.
+
+* HP has very wisely just fire-sold their entire tablet stock in a way
+that will completely recoup their capital outlay (if it has a
+resistive touchscreen then the BOM is an estimated $80 and the tablets
+have sold out in a few days at $98: $18 is just enough wiggle-room for
+shipping as well as possibly even a modest profit, particularly on the
+32gb version @ retail $150.  if it's capacitive, the BOM will have an
+extra appx $30 on top, meaning they'll get all the working capital
+back... just).
+
+* lastly and perhaps most crucially, it has to be said that this "Peak
+Oil" thing, along with the "Global Warming" thing, is undeniably
+taking a grip on the world, which leaves people with a choice to
+*readily* face it (i.e. be prepared and better yet as well get _other
+people_ prepared, as a secondary priority), or to face the upcoming
+situation in a "Crisis" mode, which, if faced *as* a "Crisis" is quite
+likely to result in your death.  people such as joey hess clearly get
+it: joey now lives entirely off-grid, and yet still has an internet
+connection. in a forest.  i live in a remote area of scotland, now, in
+a place which has its own well, and we're growing our own food.  it's
+still a work-in-progress.
+
+
+i could continue with this, and expand it with more examples, but let
+me make some summary points:
+
+* we're intelligent people, who have achieved a great deal
+* we're responsible for creating the software that underpins today's
+computer technology
+* governments are waltzing in and doing whatever they feel like.
+* corporations are creating hardware WITHOUT taking us into account,
+and are grabbing with both hands and returning nothing.
+
+ in short: we - intelligent Free Software Developers - are having the
+piss taken out of us, to put it mildly.
+
+so - i tell you what: i'm going to stop there, for now.  i'm going to
+leave it at that, for people to think, digest the above, and perhaps
+come up with some answers [i have some ideas, but i want to know most
+crucially if people are willing to hear them!].  and, to give you an
+opportunity to think: is this my problem, at all?  do i actually care?
+ what _is_ my role?  and, if i _do_ care, what could i do if i combine
+with a number of other people who also care?
+
+i trust that you can see that the scope of the background goes wayyy
+beyond that which linaro is tasked with, so i hope - i really do -
+that you feel that this really is something which you care about and
+can actually feel motivated to consider that _some_ sort of action
+needs to be taken, beyond the very valuable tasks and roles which you
+are presently carrying out.
+
+if, on an individual basis, you feel that the answer is "no", it's not
+my problem, then i can only apologise for having taken up your time,
+and wish you good luck with the future.
+
+l.
+