This interview with MontaVista CEO and embedded pioneer Jim Ready explains why Ready is preparing his small, privately held company for the “battle of the century.”
Linux in “battle of the century,” MontaVista CEO says
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Eugenia Loli
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Consider that MontaVista is one of Linux for Devices Gold sponsors of course they’re going to give them some spotligt.
Do we really want Linux running on EVERYTHING anyway?
Entreprenuers like to see an integrated approach to everything but technicians usually recognise that different tools are good for different jobs.
I’d like to see a competitive mix in all worlds, desktops, servers, mobile devices, and even all those things you don’t expect a powerful kernel in.
Even if you’ve got the best it’s not much fun if everyone else does too. Would linux be fun if you didn’t have Windows buddies to tease about viruses?!
While reading the article, I started getting curious to how well the linux kernel scales down onto embedded devices. I know IBM had linux running on a watch a while back, but was this just a cut-n-paste hack, or are there tools out there to help you scale down to very small, extremely resource-limited devices. Maybe MontaVista does that, I just don’t know enough about them.
The problem with linux is the GPL licensing. Any change you painstaking craft has to be given back. It effectively kills any competive advantage.
“The problem with linux is the GPL licensing. Any change you painstaking craft has to be given back. It effectively kills any competive advantage.”
if not for gpl everybody would be having their own proprietary version of linux. thats exactly what we are trying to prevent here.
have you ever wondered how redhat enterprise linux survives despite complete clones like whitebox and caos. there in lies your answer to staying competitive
linux-2.6.4.tar.gz from kernel.org is 41 meg. Not the best metric of kernel size but there are several imbeded distros running on much much smaller kernel forks.
Many of them found welll…. here
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2760742655.html
Was hoping I wasn’t the first to have to reply, but that’s the kernel source for every architecture that Linux is supported on, that’s not the kernel binary. You compile the source for the device you wish with the options you want.
Sorry that I had to burst your bubble of ignorance.
linux-2.6.4.tar.gz from kernel.org is 41 meg. Not the best metric of kernel size
Actually, that’s a terrible metric for kernel size. That’s the kernel sources, not the compiled kernel in itself…My own kernel (2.6.8) is about 1.45 MB (1523916 bytes).
Remember, you have floppy distros for Linux, such as Tom’s Root Boot – though I don’t think that’s possible anymore with kernel 2.6 (anyone?).
“The problem with linux is the GPL licensing. Any change you painstaking craft has to be given back. It effectively kills any competive advantage.”
No… Nobody would be able to build Linux themselves without GPL. By having a community of developers so much more has been able to be created.
That’s the point of Linux… It places the value of community over profit.
My own kernel (2.6.8)
Err…I mean 2.6.3
There is a small kernel patch that allows removal of unneeded features, and some small memory tuning of tables and caches.
It allows a modern 2.6 kernel to boot in 2MB memory with a shell and a (tiny) bit of memory left.
That’s the point of Linux… It places the value of community over profit.
Well, that’s nice rhetoric and all, but how does this sort of thing work in the business world? If there’s no greed involved, the majority of companies aren’t gonna touch it.
“Well, that’s nice rhetoric and all, but how does this sort of thing work in the business world? If there’s no greed involved, the majority of companies aren’t gonna touch it.”
you mean the majority of companies are greedy. i am not so sceptical. i believe everyone wants to make profit. that can be done with embedded linux. if they want to get greedy they can probably exploit one of those bsd licensed stuff.
Well, that’s nice rhetoric and all, but how does this sort of thing work in the business world? If there’s no greed involved, the majority of companies aren’t gonna touch it.
Actually, embedded device makers don’t make money with the kernel, but with the actual devices. So a free kernel actually brings in money because it enables to lower licensing costs, which can quickly escalate for small devices.
The commoditization of the OS makes great business sense from the embedded market’s point of view. Of course, if you profit from selling OS licenses, like MS, then that’s not necessarily a good thing. But hey, it’s their business model, nobody is forced to follow it…and it’s naive to think that it’s the only one that makes business sense!
<em>Well, that’s nice rhetoric and all, but how does this sort of thing work in the business world? If there’s no greed involved, the majority of companies aren’t gonna touch it.</em>
Greed is involved, these guys, device manufacturers do not make money out of software. The OS is an expense for them, if they can reduce that expense, vi Open Source or any other means they will.
It all depends on your business model, IBM don’t make money from Operating system sales, so offering a choice of OS’s is good for their hardware and services groups.
RedHat make money from offering support and services.
Don’t get it wrong, greed is involved and companies smart enough will get a bottom line benefit.
“Actually, embedded device makers don’t make money with the kernel, but with the actual devices. So a free kernel actually brings in money because it enables to lower licensing costs, which can quickly escalate for small devices.
The commoditization of the OS makes great business sense from the embedded market’s point of view.”
very good point. thats a nice insight. thank you
Well, I don’t particularly like linux because you can’t close its source and redistribute it closed, plus there are dozens of open source alternatives that give you that ability.
Although I don’t really care about linux much either way I do feel that this CEO is somewhat right about it being a battle. He’s arguements are stupid though, hes going about it like darl mcbride. Bad PR bad bad bad PR.
Bad PR can lead to the end of companies.
Actually, embedded device makers don’t make money with the kernel, but with the actual devices. So a free kernel actually brings in money because it enables to lower licensing costs, which can quickly escalate for small devices.
I guess this depends on how many modifications you gotta make to the kernel in order to make it do whatever you want. You might be right assuming a company doesn’t have to change it much, but if they do a lot of modifications to it, then have to turn around and hand it to their competitors after they’re done, that where the greed part is gonna come into play
“if not for gpl everybody would be having their own proprietary version of linux. thats exactly what we are trying to prevent here. ”
Not necessarily, look at BSD Unix, it helps commercial projects and has spawned ELEVEN distros. All of those distros are as powerful as Linux. Linux has good PR, alot of people shouting out over linux and stuff repeatedly, plus the red hat and suse support early on helped it.
If Red Hat replaced the linux kernel with the BSD kernel and kept the “Linux” name next to “Red Hat Enterprise” It would continue to sell like it has been.
the MIT is more free than the GPL. The GPL has these non closing restrictions, the MIT and BSD don’t oh and somehow the GNU project HATES BSD because of the advertisement clause. Geez.
Let’s see here, lets just kill the software world and don’t give me that crap about making more with linux on the services. Open source projects are starting to offer free services to compete with the commercial ones, like upgrading, but not really support. You pay me to do that.
OH LETS FIRE ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WORK ON OS’s FOR A LIVING THEN. WE CAN JUST USE THE COMMUNITY AND SELL SERVICES.
Looks like the pay for programmers will drop like it’s been doing.
Oh, close source is EVIL. All other licenses except for GPL is EVIL. Eh? arugghh this is frustrating to me when people are so biased. I’m biased too but I license some of my software under the GPL so there ya go.
Why do we need linux running on everything? Oh that toaster runs linux, that little chip in my head-it runs linux. I thought linux is a workstation/server OS. A Unix OS for embedded applications tend to always be modified. I think the idea of linux on everything is just silly and is provoked by this linux “phenomenon”. If you take linux and alter it and change it specifically for that device I don’t see a problem but stuff like porting red hat to an xbox or ps2, i just will never understand………………..
Time to go play with linux on my opteron server 😉
These are my personal opinions.
Ok I agree with you on one or more point, however this is not an article primarily on licenses.
The Point I agree on is that we doe not have to have linux running on everything, we don’t need windows running on everything either. I hope I never by a toaster that needs and OS. However any market that Windows is in and they believe is valid for their OS must also be valid for Linux, BSD or anyother OS. After all Linux is probably displacing more entrenched OS’s from this market rather than windows.
Companies will not fire the people that develop OS’s, if they have them now they will keep them. IBM, RedHat, SuSE, Sun and others employ people whose sole purpose is to update Linux. However they now gain the benifit of all the work performed by all groups, not just the ability of their own team. In the embedded space Motorola, Sony and others provide OS developers to enhance Linux in there space.
They could do this with BSD and others, but maybe they are confused by the PR, or maybe they see the benifit of sharing the workload on the none core part of there business.
Remeber if these guys have to write a wizzy driver or application to support their new one of a kind wizzy hardware, that does not have to be GPL, so it can be protected.
These are nice big greedy companies.
“I guess this depends on how many modifications you gotta make to the kernel in order to make it do whatever you want. You might be right assuming a company doesn’t have to change it much, but if they do a lot of modifications to it, then have to turn around and hand it to their competitors after they’re done, that where the greed part is gonna come into play
”
every embedded device manufacturer uses different kind of hardware so they lose nothing at all here.
”
Oh, close source is EVIL. All other licenses except for GPL is EVIL. Eh? arugghh this is frustrating to me when people are so biased. I’m biased too but I license some of my software under the GPL so there ya go.
”
who claimed that. you are self disputing yourself. no comments on that
You might be right assuming a company doesn’t have to change it much, but if they do a lot of modifications to it, then have to turn around and hand it to their competitors after they’re done, that where the greed part is gonna come into play
Remember, we’re talking about the kernel here. Manufacturers can produce proprietary elements as part of the software in their embedded devices. They have no real advantage of developing “secret kernels” – that’s not where their competitive edge lays.
Same goes for IBM, at the other end of the scale. Linux helps them sell servers just like it might help a cell phone company sell more phones. And both have lots more to gain from Linux than they have to lose by using closed-source kernels.
In any case, considering that Linux is taking the embedded world by storm, I guess it does make business sense. It wouldn’t be that popular if it didn’t.
w
I try to refrain from “GPL is less free than BSD” rants, because they lead nowhere. GPL and BSD both represents different subsets of what constitutes freedom. They are equally, if differently, free.
I did feel like I should correct his erroneous statement, though:
and somehow the GNU project HATES BSD because of the advertisement clause.
You are aware that the new official BSD license no longer carries the advertisement clause, right? The FSF declares the BSDL as a “free, non-copyleft license” that is considered compatible with the GPL.
Now, in the name of everything that’s holy, please do not turn this into yet another GPL vs. BSD flamewar. That (along with KDE vs. GNOME or vi vs. Emacs) has got to be the worst use of electrons possible.
have you ever heard of someone being skeptical?
I like the MIT license better!. How about the license that MINIX is distributed under? Microsoft’s unix 😉
Linux gets rid of the jobs of people doing core OS work. in linux there is no core OS work to do you just compile it all together and update it and sell it. This cuts jobs, the people’s jobs that work on the actual kernel and what not. I could go take redhat and start “VERYCOOL Linux” and does the same things red hat does and just use red hat for code but ofcourse I don’t have a strong marketing brand and I don’t want to compete with 100+ distros.
I agree. Lets not start a flamewar. But the name “free software foundation” has put itsself in a a PR position in declaring the GPL the free software license. Thats the end of that lets not start a license debate and get off topic.
The idea that linux creates more programming jobs or helps companies keep the same number of programming jobs but let the OS scale up as fast as linux has is just a myth. That’s not true. Linux is great for companies that sell services like red hat. It’s bad for companies that actually develope software (this excludes red hat). It’s great for hardware companies. What about companies that make the software AND sell services? Well, lets switch to a linux kernel and just sell the services to fire a bunch of people to be able to report profitability.
With that being said, I’m working on a Unix distro 😉
Sarcasm I ment, not skepticalness.
I thought I made it clear enough in contridictions that it was obvious of me being sarcastic.
“But the name “free software foundation” has put itsself in a a PR position in declaring the GPL the free software license. Thats the end of that lets not start a license debate and get off topic. ”
free in free software foundations means some specific freedoms. fsf has NEVER called gpl THE free software license
there is a whole lot of licenses that fsf acknowledges as free
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
so dont spread FUD
It’s implied by the general public and FSF’s leaders and what not. FSF promotes the GPL because it’s their own license. There is plenty of areas on that website that show how cool GPL is compared to all the other ones.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
Futhermore: “The Open Source Movement, which was launched in 1998, ” Comes from the website. Looks like they own the movement or something. Could sworn there was open source before that. There’s alot of interesting articles on it.
Btw, I had no idea that expressing opinions about GNU in such nature scared so many people, causing fear uncertainty and doubt. GNU does plenty of it themselves, especially against commercial software providers.
LOL @ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Looks like they invented “free software” as their own definition.
I thought “FREE” could mean alot of things like free as in no charge price, etc. I guess obviously not.
Sorry thats a little off topic but I found that kinda funny.
Remember, we’re talking about the kernel here. Manufacturers can produce proprietary elements as part of the software in their embedded devices. They have no real advantage of developing “secret kernels” – that’s not where their competitive edge lays.
Ok, so they can take the Linux kernel and put it into an embedded device, then layer a proprietary OS (GUI, or whatever) and applications on top, thus basically making all of the ‘important’ parts of the software system proprietary.
So if companies could do that with Linux on embedded devices, then what’s to stop them from doing that with Linux on the desktop? People for years have shunned the idea of an ‘AOL Linux’ or ‘Microsoft Linux’, saying that could never happen because Linux is free and always will be and therefore nobody could ‘control’ it (for lack of a better word), but when you break it down, only the kernel is really free, no? Just grab the kernel, slap a proprietary ‘x server’ and window manager on top of that, build a few apps, and presto … propietary Linux
Linux gets rid of the jobs of people doing core OS work.
Not true. OSDL employs people doing core OS work. So does IBM, HP, and quite a few other corporations.
The idea that linux creates more programming jobs or helps companies keep the same number of programming jobs but let the OS scale up as fast as linux has is just a myth.
Well, until your provide some data to back up this claim, that’s just your opinion, not a fact.
Linux is bad for companies that actually develope software (this excludes red hat).
Again, a false statement. No one is forcing anyone writing software for Linux to license it under the GPL. You do have proprietary, closed-source software for Linux, you know.
Linux is bad for Microsoft’s OS dominance, I’ll grant you that. But claiming that there are no paid core Linux developers – when in fact a great deal of Linux kernel developers are paid to do their work – is rather outlandish.
It’s implied by the general public and FSF’s leaders and what not.
That’s a rather poor argument, don’t you think? As Anonymous (IP: 61.95.184.—) said, the FSF doesn’t consider the GPL as the only free license. They give a list of other free licenses. Of course they’ll spend some energy promoting the GPL – hey, RMS came up with it, and he started the FSF. Honestly, what do you expect? However, it is incorrect to claim that they consider it the only free license.
Btw, I had no idea that expressing opinions about GNU in such nature scared so many people, causing fear uncertainty and doubt.
You’re not scaring anyone. You make erroneous statements. We correct you. That’s called debate. You can’t expect to make such incorrect statements and not have people responding to set the record straight.
At least you acknowledge that you are, in fact, spreading FUD.
@Chris Caston:
“Do we really want Linux running on EVERYTHING anyway?”
No — Of course not! We want Windows running on EVERYTHING! Oh! Wait — We’ve been there! My dumb
So if companies could do that with Linux on embedded devices, then what’s to stop them from doing that with Linux on the desktop?
Nothing. However, the desktop and embedded markets are very different. Drawing parallels between the two is quite risky, because the user’s relationship to the OS (and the device) are not the same at all. For embedded devices, users usually don’t know (and don’t care) what the OS is. For desktops and servers, the OS is much more visible.
Also, on has to wonder what would be the business incentive to put out a proprietary OS around a Linux kernel. I can understand making proprietary apps, but what you suggest would be extremely hard to market on the desktop. In other words, a probable reason for the absence of proprietary OSes based on the Linux kernel is that it doesn’t make much sense from a business point of view…
“The problem with linux is the GPL licensing. Any change you painstaking craft has to be given back. It effectively kills any competive advantage.”
I do agree with some of your statement, but it is _not entirely true. The GPL does not prevent a manufacturer from developing it’s own set of tools to work with it’s software.
Look at SUSE — until recently they used non-GPL software that some would argue that gave them a competitive benifit.
Another Example is Lindows: Some would argue that ‘click n’ run’ gives them a competive edge over the competition. (I know someone that tried Redhat 9, and found it difficult to install applications. They have now been using Lindows for approx. 5 months, and they love how easy it is!) I know it’s not for everyone, but it does have a market!
Even if the GPL does become the dominant licensing method (which it’s far from) it won’t kill the competive edge for software manufacturers. It will only require them to change their way of thinking.
Yes, ***IF*** the GPL does become dominant the industry will change, but people/organizations will adapt. For example approx. 25 – 30yrs ago people thought computers would kill more jobs than it created. We now know that computers created more jobs than they replaced.
the century has just begun. water is the key not microsoft vs linux!!
unless water goes Free Software L#:Q^*
“The problem with linux is the GPL licensing. Any change you painstaking craft has to be given back.”
No. Only if you decide to distribute the binary.
“The idea that linux creates more programming jobs or helps companies keep the same number of programming jobs but let the OS scale up as fast as linux has is just a myth. That’s not true. Linux is great for companies that sell services like red hat. It’s bad for companies that actually develope software (this excludes red hat). It’s great for hardware companies. What about companies that make the software AND sell services? Well, lets switch to a linux kernel and just sell the services to fire a bunch of people to be able to report profitability.”
It can create more programming jobs, should people decide to develop software for Linux. Software does not have to be released under the GPL and be free if it does not use GPL’d code. In turn it can be sold for linux and be closed source. I for one wish more gaming companies would do that. I buy software I think is worthwhile, and yes I even buy my Linux distros.
it kills the selling actual software, not the services that accompany software. The GPL that is, other licenses like apache and mit are great (even the one MINIX is under) I borrow code all the time ofcourse I do sight the copyrights.
maybe you should have a software company like me.
um. its free its open everyone can use it..hmm looks like i just coded for other peopel to give away for free. hmmm… thats not a software business.
redhat is just selling services and a brand name. since you cant distribute their OS (with the copyrights–all over the place) or even make a comment that your OS is compatible with red hat w/o permission.
looks like redhat saw this problem and tried to counter it and got profitable. i dont think it will last though.
yeah, consumers love OSS. I do to–I even perfer it–as long as if its not the GPL.
Yeah, whatever. Another anti-GPL rant. Well, as a user, I much prefer the GPL to the BSD license, because I know that I’ll get access to any software based on a GPL program that I already use.
Basically, you’re making the same complaint as we always keep hearing: you want to be able to take advantage of open-source code, but you don’t want others to profit from your code. Well, tough.
I’m sick of these anti-GPL trolls.