[ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Tim Bird]

Hey embedded Linux developers...

Are you itching to see some feature developed for embedded
Linux?  Would you like to suggest that CELF spend their
money on some specific project?  Would you like CELF to
sponsor a project you are working on?

Well, now is your chance!  This is the official announcement
of a new plan by CELF, called the "Open Project Proposal".

The CELF Open Project Proposal is a process whereby members
of the public submit to the CE Linux Forum ideas and
proposals for projects that they think should be worked on
to enhance embedded Linux.  The plan is to solicit ideas for
our 2010 contract work projects. Areas of work can
include the Linux kernel, graphics systems, toolchain work,
or anything else that will help enhance Linux for use in
embedded systems.

Each year, CELF spends money on contract work to improve
Linux for use in embedded systems. Some of the projects we
have sponsored in the past include Linux-tiny, DirectFB
enhancements, smem, and Squashfs mainlining.

Usually, our process involves querying forum members about
their desires and building a project list from that. This
year, we are opening up the process and asking for your ideas
and proposals as well.

For details, see:
http://elinux.org/CELF_Open_Project_Proposal_2010

Proposal are welcome immediately...

Thanks,
 -- Tim

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Corporation of America
=============================

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Mike Frysinger]

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 18:47, Tim Bird wrote:
> The CELF Open Project Proposal is a process whereby members
> of the public submit to the CE Linux Forum ideas and
> proposals for projects that they think should be worked on
> to enhance embedded Linux.  The plan is to solicit ideas for
> our 2010 contract work projects. Areas of work can
> include the Linux kernel, graphics systems, toolchain work,
> or anything else that will help enhance Linux for use in
> embedded systems.
>
> Each year, CELF spends money on contract work to improve
> Linux for use in embedded systems. Some of the projects we
> have sponsored in the past include Linux-tiny, DirectFB
> enhancements, smem, and Squashfs mainlining.
>
> Usually, our process involves querying forum members about
> their desires and building a project list from that. This
> year, we are opening up the process and asking for your ideas
> and proposals as well.

maybe i missed it, but there doesnt seem to be too much emphasis on
working with the respective projects and getting merged.  that seems
like one of the most important aspects of doing any enhancement work
as anything not merged means it'll quickly be left behind and largely
go to waste.
-mike

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Tim Bird]

Mike Frysinger wrote:
> maybe i missed it, but there doesnt seem to be too much emphasis on
> working with the respective projects and getting merged.  that seems
> like one of the most important aspects of doing any enhancement work
> as anything not merged means it'll quickly be left behind and largely
> go to waste.
I agree.

Many of our contracts have a financial incentive built in to
get "mainlined". Some of our projects' sole objective is to
mainline already existing stuff (like Linux-tiny and SquashFS).

If anyone has a feature that already exists, but that they
think should be merged with the relevant upstream project,
that's a good candidate for a proposal.

One obvious project, which I'm waiting to see if someone else
submits, is to pay someone to mainline some of the outstanding
Android patches into the Linux kernel.
 -- Tim


=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Corporation of America
=============================

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Mike Frysinger]

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 18:47, Tim Birdwrote:
> Hey embedded Linux developers...
>
> Are you itching to see some feature developed for embedded
> Linux?  Would you like to suggest that CELF spend their
> money on some specific project?  Would you like CELF to
> sponsor a project you are working on?
>
> Well, now is your chance!  This is the official announcement
> of a new plan by CELF, called the "Open Project Proposal".

i know your e-mail intro states "embedded Linux" as does the wiki, but
i'm gonna take a stab anyways.  does this apply to Linux only and not
open source boot loaders (like U-Boot) ?
-mike

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Tim Bird]

Mike Frysinger wrote:
> i know your e-mail intro states "embedded Linux" as does the wiki, but
> i'm gonna take a stab anyways.  does this apply to Linux only and not
> open source boot loaders (like U-Boot) ?

It applies to anything in the "embedded Linux" ecosystem.  This
would very much include open source boot loaders like U-Boot.
 -- Tim

=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Corporation of America
=============================

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[David Woodhouse]

On Wed, 2009-12-02 at 13:46 -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> It applies to anything in the "embedded Linux" ecosystem.  This
> would very much include open source boot loaders like U-Boot. 

And coreboot.

The world needs more coreboot.

-- 
dwmw2

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Tim Bird]

David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-12-02 at 13:46 -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
>> It applies to anything in the "embedded Linux" ecosystem.  This
>> would very much include open source boot loaders like U-Boot. 
> 
> And coreboot.
> 
> The world needs more coreboot.

If coreboot were on ARM, it would be more interesting.
That would make an interesting proposal, I suppose. :-)
 -- Tim


=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Corporation of America
=============================

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Aras Vaichas]

2009/12/3 Tim Bird <tim.bird@am.sony.com>
>
> Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > i know your e-mail intro states "embedded Linux" as does the wiki, but
> > i'm gonna take a stab anyways.  does this apply to Linux only and not
> > open source boot loaders (like U-Boot) ?
>
> It applies to anything in the "embedded Linux" ecosystem.  This
> would very much include open source boot loaders like U-Boot.

I've got a list of "nice to haves"

Any boot time speed up work.

Support for 2nd stage booting from NAND with newer filesystems such as
UBIFS. i.e. simplified UBI/UBIFS read/write/format code in a small
footprint.

TFTP server in a boot loader (U-boot or other). i.e. allows you to
push a firmware upgrade image to a device. I do know of a few of these
but they are not open sourced.

Just my 2 cents.

Aras

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Aras Vaichas,

In message <ed62800912021827s6f25f063ke836fe1482cec028@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>
> Support for 2nd stage booting from NAND with newer filesystems such as
> UBIFS. i.e. simplified UBI/UBIFS read/write/format code in a small
> footprint.
> 
> TFTP server in a boot loader (U-boot or other). i.e. allows you to
> push a firmware upgrade image to a device. I do know of a few of these
> but they are not open sourced.

U-Boot supports both TFTP (and NFS) downlod, and UBI/UBIFS.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
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Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[David Woodhouse]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 1483 bytes --]

On Thu, 3 Dec 2009, Aras Vaichas wrote:

> 2009/12/3 Tim Bird <tim.bird@am.sony.com>
>>
>> Mike Frysinger wrote:
>>> i know your e-mail intro states "embedded Linux" as does the wiki, but
>>> i'm gonna take a stab anyways.  does this apply to Linux only and not
>>> open source boot loaders (like U-Boot) ?
>>
>> It applies to anything in the "embedded Linux" ecosystem.  This
>> would very much include open source boot loaders like U-Boot.
>
> I've got a list of "nice to haves"
>
> Any boot time speed up work.
>
> Support for 2nd stage booting from NAND with newer filesystems such as
> UBIFS. i.e. simplified UBI/UBIFS read/write/format code in a small
> footprint.

Is it heretical to suggest a BSD licence for that too, to encourage 
adoption into other bootloaders? Or at least LGPL or the 
"GPL with linking exception" licence that libstdc++/eCos/JFFS2 have.

> TFTP server in a boot loader (U-boot or other). i.e. allows you to
> push a firmware upgrade image to a device. I do know of a few of these
> but they are not open sourced.

OpenFirmware copes with this quite nicely (or with http download, for that 
matter). You can even flash a whole bunch of devices at once with 
multicast over the wireless. Somewhere there's a photo of me with a few 
hundred OLPC laptops laid out across the floor of main hall in a Mongolian 
school, all sucking up their NAND image over the wireless.

The world needs more OpenFirmware :)

-- 
dwmw2

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Kyungmin Park]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de> wrote:
> Dear Aras Vaichas,
>
> In message <ed62800912021827s6f25f063ke836fe1482cec028@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>>
>> Support for 2nd stage booting from NAND with newer filesystems such as
>> UBIFS. i.e. simplified UBI/UBIFS read/write/format code in a small
>> footprint.
>>
>> TFTP server in a boot loader (U-boot or other). i.e. allows you to
>> push a firmware upgrade image to a device. I do know of a few of these
>> but they are not open sourced.
>
> U-Boot supports both TFTP (and NFS) downlod, and UBI/UBIFS.

How about the TFTP over USB? It's required feature for no ethernet devices

I wish some filesystem to share between u-boot and kernel. Of course
ext2 or fat is possbile. but current u-boot implementation depends on
block device or NOR device. not for NAND/OneNAND devices.

Finally very very small jpeg or png library for u-boot (under 30KiB).

Thank you,
Kyungmin Park

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Mike Frysinger]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 08:38, Kyungmin Park wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
>> Aras Vaichas wrote:
>>> Support for 2nd stage booting from NAND with newer filesystems such as
>>> UBIFS. i.e. simplified UBI/UBIFS read/write/format code in a small
>>> footprint.
>>>
>>> TFTP server in a boot loader (U-boot or other). i.e. allows you to
>>> push a firmware upgrade image to a device. I do know of a few of these
>>> but they are not open sourced.
>>
>> U-Boot supports both TFTP (and NFS) downlod, and UBI/UBIFS.
>
> How about the TFTP over USB? It's required feature for no ethernet devices

you'll have to be more specific if you want a real answer.  U-Boot has
USB Ethernet gadget support already.
-mike

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Josh Boyer]

On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 07:17:30AM +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Thu, 3 Dec 2009, Aras Vaichas wrote:
>
>> 2009/12/3 Tim Bird <tim.bird@am.sony.com>
>>>
>>> Mike Frysinger wrote:
>>>> i know your e-mail intro states "embedded Linux" as does the wiki, but
>>>> i'm gonna take a stab anyways.  does this apply to Linux only and not
>>>> open source boot loaders (like U-Boot) ?
>>>
>>> It applies to anything in the "embedded Linux" ecosystem.  This
>>> would very much include open source boot loaders like U-Boot.
>>
>> I've got a list of "nice to haves"
>>
>> Any boot time speed up work.
>>
>> Support for 2nd stage booting from NAND with newer filesystems such as
>> UBIFS. i.e. simplified UBI/UBIFS read/write/format code in a small
>> footprint.
>
> Is it heretical to suggest a BSD licence for that too, to encourage  
> adoption into other bootloaders? Or at least LGPL or the "GPL with 
> linking exception" licence that libstdc++/eCos/JFFS2 have.

Are you asking for a relicense of the existing UBI/UBIFS code?

josh

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[David Woodhouse]

On Thu, 2009-12-03 at 09:42 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> > Is it heretical to suggest a BSD licence for that too, to encourage  
> > adoption into other bootloaders? Or at least LGPL or the "GPL with 
> > linking exception" licence that libstdc++/eCos/JFFS2 have.
> 
> Are you asking for a relicense of the existing UBI/UBIFS code?

I didn't think that would be reasonable. But if we're doing a simpler
version which can exist in a bootloader, it might be a good idea.

-- 
dwmw2

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Robert Schwebel]

Hi David,

On Wed, Dec 02, 2009 at 09:59:50PM +0000, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-12-02 at 13:46 -0800, Tim Bird wrote:
> > It applies to anything in the "embedded Linux" ecosystem. This
> > would very much include open source boot loaders like U-Boot.
>
> And coreboot.
>
> The world needs more coreboot.

Did you have a look at u-boot-v2 (which is just in the process of being
renamed to barebox)? We have it running on all kind of architectures
(even x86 is working here recently, but the patches are not ready for
mainline yet), and it feels much more linuxish than coreboot.

http://www.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/ELCEurope2009Presentations?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Hauer-U_BootV2.pdf

Robert
-- 
Pengutronix e.K.                           |                             |
Industrial Linux Solutions                 | http://www.pengutronix.de/  |
Peiner Str. 6-8, 31137 Hildesheim, Germany | Phone: +49-5121-206917-0    |
Amtsgericht Hildesheim, HRA 2686           | Fax:   +49-5121-206917-5555 |

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Robert Schwebel]

On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 10:38:07PM +0900, Kyungmin Park wrote:
> How about the TFTP over USB? It's required feature for no ethernet devices

In barebox (aka u-boot-v2) we have USB DFU support, in a very flexible
way. Would that fit your needs?

> I wish some filesystem to share between u-boot and kernel. Of course
> ext2 or fat is possbile. but current u-boot implementation depends on
> block device or NOR device. not for NAND/OneNAND devices.

That would indeed be interesting.

> Finally very very small jpeg or png library for u-boot (under 30KiB).

What's your use case for that, a splash screen?

rsc
-- 
Pengutronix e.K.                           |                             |
Industrial Linux Solutions                 | http://www.pengutronix.de/  |
Peiner Str. 6-8, 31137 Hildesheim, Germany | Phone: +49-5121-206917-0    |
Amtsgericht Hildesheim, HRA 2686           | Fax:   +49-5121-206917-5555 |

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Aras Vaichas]

2009/12/4 Robert Schwebel <r.schwebel@pengutronix.de>:
> On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 10:38:07PM +0900, Kyungmin Park wrote:
>> How about the TFTP over USB? It's required feature for no ethernet devices
>
> In barebox (aka u-boot-v2) we have USB DFU support, in a very flexible
> way. Would that fit your needs?

That would probably be better than TFTP over ethernet. A USB DFU
upgrade would only require the microcontroller to be functioning for
the upgrade to work and it doesn't require TCP/IP stack or ethernet
chip drivers.

I maintain a family of devices which can be built with or without
ethernet. Currently we attach an ethernet daughterboard to the device
to bootstrap it, and for development, but remove it for commercial
use.

We are planning on using a PEEDI JTAG for production installation and
I have been working with the PEEDI developers to get UBI/UBIFS support
into the PEEDI (currently supports JFFS2). JTAG is good for production
installation but USB DFU is ideal for field upgrades or bricked-system
recovery.

Aras Vaichas

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Robert Schwebel]

On Fri, Dec 04, 2009 at 02:29:12PM +1100, Aras Vaichas wrote:
> > In barebox (aka u-boot-v2) we have USB DFU support, in a very flexible
> > way. Would that fit your needs?
>
> That would probably be better than TFTP over ethernet. A USB DFU
> upgrade would only require the microcontroller to be functioning for
> the upgrade to work and it doesn't require TCP/IP stack or ethernet
> chip drivers.

Yup. Barebox has Kconfig as it's configuration system, so you can make
components y/n/m. It follows the same module mechanism as the kernel, so
you can insmod drivers if you need them.

> I maintain a family of devices which can be built with or without
> ethernet. Currently we attach an ethernet daughterboard to the device
> to bootstrap it, and for development, but remove it for commercial
> use.

Sounds like a usecase for insmod :-)

rsc
-- 
Pengutronix e.K.                           |                             |
Industrial Linux Solutions                 | http://www.pengutronix.de/  |
Peiner Str. 6-8, 31137 Hildesheim, Germany | Phone: +49-5121-206917-0    |
Amtsgericht Hildesheim, HRA 2686           | Fax:   +49-5121-206917-5555 |

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Kyungmin Park]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:50 PM, Mike Frysinger <vapier.adi@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 08:38, Kyungmin Park wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
>>> Aras Vaichas wrote:
>>>> Support for 2nd stage booting from NAND with newer filesystems such as
>>>> UBIFS. i.e. simplified UBI/UBIFS read/write/format code in a small
>>>> footprint.
>>>>
>>>> TFTP server in a boot loader (U-boot or other). i.e. allows you to
>>>> push a firmware upgrade image to a device. I do know of a few of these
>>>> but they are not open sourced.
>>>
>>> U-Boot supports both TFTP (and NFS) downlod, and UBI/UBIFS.
>>
>> How about the TFTP over USB? It's required feature for no ethernet devices
>
> you'll have to be more specific if you want a real answer.  U-Boot has
> USB Ethernet gadget support already.

Yes I see the u-boot-usb cdc branch, but it doesn't support the RNDIS
feature. The real or wanted use case is that I receive the kernel and
system image from tftp over USB from tftpserver via windows.

Thank you,
Kyungmin Park

Re: [ANNOUNCE] CELF open project proposal

[Kyungmin Park]

On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 5:54 AM, Robert Schwebel
<r.schwebel@pengutronix.de> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 10:38:07PM +0900, Kyungmin Park wrote:
>> How about the TFTP over USB? It's required feature for no ethernet devices
>
> In barebox (aka u-boot-v2) we have USB DFU support, in a very flexible
> way. Would that fit your needs?

I will check the USB DFU. Thanks for info.

>
>> I wish some filesystem to share between u-boot and kernel. Of course
>> ext2 or fat is possbile. but current u-boot implementation depends on
>> block device or NOR device. not for NAND/OneNAND devices.
>
> That would indeed be interesting.

More required feature is we can update the file instead of partition.
Remove or update the file itself.
>
>> Finally very very small jpeg or png library for u-boot (under 30KiB).
>
> What's your use case for that, a splash screen?

and charging animation. bootloader can support the battery charging feature.
That's the another reason to use sharable filesystem at bootloader.
We store the charging images to shareable filesystem and display it at
bootloader using graphics library.

Thank you,
Kyungmin Park