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Linux Business

Consumer Electronics Industry: Linux is the Future 263

Posted by michael from the ping-the-microwave dept.
securitas writes "The New York Times is carrying a Reuters story about Linux as the software of choice for consumer electronics. At the world's largest consumer electronics show, the IFA trade fair 'the first Linux products are already on show and more will come soon, companies said.' The reason? Linux is freely available, widely embraced and profit margins in the consumer electronics business are one or two percent at best. The math is simple. The industry push comes from the members of the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), that includes Sony, Philips, Matsushita/Panasonic, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, NEC, IBM, LG, Thomson/RCA and Toshiba. The CELF was previously discussed on Slashdot. Mirrors at Silicon.com and CNet News."
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Consumer Electronics Industry: Linux is the Future More

Consumer Electronics Industry: Linux is the Future

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  • Close! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by El ( 94934 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:01PM (#6827673)
    Actually, Embedded Linux is the present! I am this very minute putting the finishing touches on embedded Linux code shipping in a projector! Sorry, WindRiver -- guess you aren't the Micro$oft of the embedded world after all!
    • Just curious (and this is a serious question):

      Why Linux instead of BSD? If it were me, I'd be concerned that GPL would require me to release some part, or maybe all, of the special code written for the embedded device. I don't want to get into a GPL debate, just assume that someone wasn't careful and did write their code in such a way that it was deamed to be covered under the GPL.

      Why take that chance, why not use BSD instead?

      • Re:Close! (Score:2)

        by El ( 94934 )
        Our value added is in user space (seperate processes), so we don't have to release it. Also, Linux is more widely supported in hardware drivers, protocols, etc. Also, there's dozens of flavors or embedded Linux, while the only embedded BSD is owned by WindRiver. Nothing against WindRiver; they just want a minimum of $100,000 before they'll do anything for you.
    • Actually, Embedded Linux is the present! I am this very minute putting the finishing touches on embedded Linux code shipping in a projector! Sorry, WindRiver -- guess you aren't the Micro$oft of the embedded world after all!

      You bet its the present! One of my previous jobs was building controlers from camera pan/tilt systems. We figured we could value add by getting Axis's dev kits and building from there(the side benifit getting mjpeg digitisation). Mine Gott! it was good. Being able to just shopping car

  • Good news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geekmetal ( 682313 ) <vkeerthy@gmail.cAAAom minus threevowels> on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:02PM (#6827685) Journal
    Low cost and the freedom to tweak the software are reasons why eight of the world's largest consumer electronics makers, including the numbers one and two Sony Corp and Matsushita of Japan, have set up an alliance to develop and promote Linux for consumer electronics products, last month.

    I just hope all these corporation continue to respect GPL and not find a way to tear Linux apart. Just a little caution needed after what happened to UNIX.

    • Re:Good news (Score:4, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:11PM (#6827793)
      the big problem (and the reason that the companies are using it) is that they can exploit Linux for their own financial gain without giving us anything back.

      While it's nice to say that Linux runs these devices, I would also like to see that fucking code get into the kernel somehow.

      The reason Linux is as good as it is is because of the community. Linux programmers made the kernel the way it is OPENLY.

      These companies are going to use what has already been developed and then they aren't going to continue adding those features to the kernel to be worked on by others.

      Again, I am glad to see Linux is running these things, but I would prefer that Linux be made better openly by these companies embracing it.

      • Re:Good news (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Abcd1234 ( 188840 )
        Presuming, of course, that they're making any substantive changes to the kernel code base that anyone is actually interested in. After all, most of the modifications they do make are probably very specific to the hardware they're using, etc, and hence aren't that useful to anyone outside the company.
        • eh, I don't know about that. We have already found uses for 1000s of devices that now run some OS (that people left for dead). Why wouldn't we want to know how it worked so that it could be improved?

          • Re:Good news (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Abcd1234 ( 188840 )
            Perhaps, but do we really care if that code gets into Linux? Do you really want a bunch of patches in the Kernel that allow it run on a specific set of hardware in a particular DVD player?

            My point is that unless these companies are making interesting architectural changes to the kernel, or otherwise improving it in a way that more than just a few people care about, what difference does it make if they release their changes or not?

            • Re:Good news (Score:2, Insightful)

              by PD ( 9577 ) *
              The reason is that these companies are using Linux for a reason. Don't look at the situation as "us" and "companies". The companies are users too. They choose Linux sometimes for the same reasons that we choose Linux.

              What are those reasons? The ability to get a great product for low cost, the ability to change that product, and the ability to distribute the modified product.

              A company that makes a device, such as a robot, isn't in the operating system business. Even if the extensions that allow Linux to ru
      • These companies are going to use what has already been developed and then they aren't going to continue adding those features to the kernel to be worked on by others.

        If they ship the software as part of their hardware, they have to make the source available.

      • Re:Good news (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @05:01PM (#6828383)
        Woah there Cowboy. Their actually helping Linux without ever returning a line of code. The main barriers that are holding back Linux are not technical but social issues. The truth is most people don't care about the license just as long it is not to restrictive. But people have a tendency of following the leader (Or those big companies) when possible. With a lot of the Big boys using Linux it is helping get the word out about Linux and as well in the far future when these imbedded devices start to really standardize Linux has a better chance of being ported to meet the standards then any property format. Once standardization occurs Linux is there to stay in the imbedded market just like Windows is on the Desktop (I Feel imbedded electronics will replace desktops as a common means of computing far faster then it will take linux to win on the desktop). So basically every one who uses Linux is supporting it, even if they are not giving all their code to the public.
        • The truth is most people don't care about the license just as long it is not to restrictive.

          No. The truth is most people don't even read the licence, and wouldn't care what it said if they did.

          They'd have the same attitude that they do to copying CDs, or speeding - "sure, *technically* it's illegal, but what're the chances of getting caught? And besides, they can't lock everyone up, can they?"

          Linux will only replace Windows on the desktop when it's better in ways that end users care about, and all they
      • IF there code isn't part of the kernel, and is only "user space" software, who cares? They can create whatever software they want on top of a very minumal kernel and as long as they don't use GPL software to build from, they don't have to release squat.
    • I just hope all these corporation continue to respect GPL and not find a way to tear Linux apart.

      If companies wanted to "tear Linux apart", why would they get together in the CELF? The main point of using Linux is to get a market in which programmers and tools can be shared among many projects and companies. If companies wanted their own proprietary embedded operating systems, they wouldn't have to take Linux and hack it up, they could just keep using whatever they are already using.

      If some companies e
    • I wonder if those who don't respect the GPL will be attacked by competitors. IP is IP, protected by the GPL or in a more traditional form, and in the current business environment as much a weapon as an expression of innovation. If GPL because deeply ingrained into the economy expect those who don't respect it to be called to the carpet, not because competitors have any love for the license or its ideals, but as a lever against a competitor.

  • Math (Score:5, Funny)

    by mopslik ( 688435 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:04PM (#6827706)

    Linux is freely available... The math is simple.

    SCO-math aside...

    Good to hear, though. I've been happy with my little Linux-based MP3 player for years now.

    • I know it involves giving in to the bullying, but since we got so many corps standing behind linux, perhaps they should all chip in, buy-out, and subsequently dismantle SCO.
      • Nah, a buy out is giving in. Litigate the hell out of them, until they are bankrupt. Each major US company that currently supports linux could each take a whack and tie them up in court for a year a piece, or something fun like that.
    • Good to hear, though. I've been happy with my little Linux-based MP3 player for years now.

      How about a URL?

    • Re:Math (Score:3, Funny)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 )
      I don't know.

      A SCO Xenix based MP3 player with a +$699 price tag with constant rebooting, freezing, and disk corruption sounds pretty good for me right now.

      • I don't know of anyone who ever ran Xenix on a machine powerful enough to decode an mp3 in realtime. I'm sure some people have done it, though, as their 386s and such died.

        The real point of this comment, though, is to comment on the stability of Xenix, which is extreme. I had a crappy ol' 286 and Xenix upon it, and it never ever crashed. Not even a little bit. I used it as my exclusive machine for quite some time, while I was still in the learning phase of using Unix. (I mean, you're always learning, but

    • The SCO-math is probably what got Darl and company all exited. Think about all those thousands if not millions of Linux based consumer products and SCO thinks they can extort a licensing fee for using Linux on them. If they were to win their case, Darl and company would probably end up with more money than Bill Gates for doing nothing but filing a few lawsuits. Liability lawyers have been known to take up cases on a contingency basis with a lot less chance of winning, not as much money at stake and less
    • Linux is freely available... The math is simple.

      It's a shame that companies only seem to like it because it's free. It's better than the alternatives for a lot of reasons, and only one of them is the price.

  • Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ciroknight ( 601098 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:06PM (#6827736)
    Won't all computers end up being embedded devices? I mean really think about it. Why would you load the OS on to a hard drive when you could easly put it on a hardware level and put all the programs on the disk. Makes a lot of sense because you save so much disk space, and at the same time, the OS is more secured against accidental deletion and file corrupting viruses.

    So I treat this as the ultimate victory for Linux. The next generation of computers is wireless and mobile and trying to keep everything secure. Firmware Operating Systems is the solution; hail the next coming of a great era, the wireless/linux revolution!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Hmm (Score:2)

        by garcia ( 6573 ) *
        eh. a few examples...

        Nikon Coolpix 775 upgraded from 1.3 to 1.4 via firmware.bin available on nikonusa.com

        Garmin e-Trex Vista upgraded (frequently) from www.garminusa.com

        Compaq iPaq 3635 OS upgraded in 2002 to the latest available at the time...

        Looks like it is already being done. Why would it change?
      • ROM? Who uses ROM anymore? Most devices use flash for anything that could ever possibly need to be modified (like the OS/kernel). And since Linux can have a VERY small footprint, it'd not like you need any expensive flash memory. If I can buy a 128mb consumer flash storage device for under $30, you can put the linux kernel in a little bit of flash that you probably already have in your design for next to nothing. Besides, how often is there a important secuity hole in an embeded MP3 player or something like
      • by this i mean like my pda, it has a rom chip that is flashable: ie it can be updated but for the most part it is non-editable, making a virus or an accidental deletion of a system file practically impossible...

      • Most likely the program would be put on an EPROM (Eraseable Programmable Read Only Memory) or better yet an EEPROM (Electrical EPROM), and not just a regular ROM. Remember ROM doesn't mean you can't write to it, it is used to differentiate from RAM (Random Access Memory) where you can randomly read and write to any location in memory. EPROMs and EEPROMs require all of the memory to be erased at once, and all of the memory to be written at once, wich would be ideal for an OS, IMHO.

    • Yes, and when the next major buffer overflow for a various piece of software gets found, you'd have no way to fix it, so you'd have to throw away the device. Scary.

  • QNX (Score:4, Interesting)

    by levik ( 52444 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:07PM (#6827749) Homepage
    I always somehow thought that QNX was the OS of choice, since it was smaller and more stable.

    I mean sure devices like Tivo which can download patches from the server once a week may not really care, but what about something that's stuck with whatever OS it leaves the factory with...

    Is linux really "there" yet?

    • Re:QNX (Score:2)

      by Baki ( 72515 )
      If you use Linux for a dedicated purpose, there is no need to get the latest patch every week.

      Just take some linux baseline, develop your device with it, test it well and ship it. Since dedicated devices use only a fraction of Linux functionality, it is possible to thoroughly test and make the chance for required patches very small.
    • I always somehow thought that QNX was the OS of choice, since it was smaller and more stable.

      IIRC QNX is strictly an intel based OS. While super-reliable, it is not portable.

      • Not even close. It runs on x86, PPC, ARM, SuperH and MIPS.

      • Re:QNX (Score:3, Informative)

        by drightler ( 233032 )
        > What hardware does QNX Neutrino support?

        The QNX Neutrino RTOS supports numerous processors from the x86/Pentium, PowerPC, ARM, StrongARM, XScale, MIPS, and SH-4 processor families. In addition, the QNX Momentics development suite provides board-support packages for a large variety of reference boards.

        QNX(R) Neutrino(R) RTOS FAQs [qnx.com]

    • Re:QNX (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rusty0101 ( 565565 )
      Of concern would be the licencing costs associated with QNX. When the manufacturers are talking about 1 and 2% profit margins, even $1 per device (on a $1000 device) is 5% of a 2% profit. Worse for devices in the $50-$200 range.

      Compared with rolling your own distribution of Linux that has only the features you want in the hardware you send out, with a one time charge for the development tools if you choose to use them, and you can see that there is a large potential for savings.

      Quick back of the message c

  • Smart Vibrators? (Score:3, Funny)

    by SWroclawski ( 95770 ) <serge@wrocLIONlawski.org minus cat> on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:14PM (#6827821) Homepage
    Linux runs on smart vibrators?

    That's too much information for me...
  • includes Sony, Philips, Matsushita/Panasonic, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, NEC, IBM, LG, Thomson/RCA and Toshiba.

    What I find interesting is that many of these companies are selling consumer electronics that use OTHER OSes than Linux. So, what exactly does this context mean when they call Linux "the operating system of choice" ?

    • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Insightful)

      by korgull ( 267700 )
      That means that they have done developments based on Linux over the past few years but not put it into market yet. Perhaps now they think it's mature enough to do this to replace their existing products.
      I would considder this is to be quite a big step and it's quite remarkable that so many companies share this idea. It takes quite an effort to get so many big companies in line and therefore may be part of some long term strategy.

  • The Computer Scientist and the Engineer (Score:5, Funny)

    by YetAnotherName ( 168064 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:19PM (#6827878) Homepage
    Seems appropriate to revive this classic at this time:

    Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you think this is?"

    One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he said. The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?" The engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype."

    The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years.

    "With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard- boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelet classes.

    "The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs.

    "Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too.

    "We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v.8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook.

    "Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel Pentium with 16MB of memory, a 300MB hard disk, and a SVGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit microcontroller!)."

    The king wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and they all lived happily ever after.
    • The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. [...] "With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry.

      Sorry, but that's probably an industrial programmer/analyst, not a computer scientist. Object oriented programming ceased being at the cutting edge of computer science many years ago.
    • Yes, but does anybody want any toast? How 'bout a bagle?

      Seriously though, how many of you imagined a SCO monkey standing at the door writing down company names (Sony, Philips, Matsushita/Panasonic, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung, NEC, IBM, LG, Thomson/RCA and Toshiba as mentioned above) to put on their "to sue" list?

      Perhaps they will attempt to use their wonderful SMP capabilities to sue in parallel. I want a front row seat for the backlash when SCO's computers, telephones, PDAs, microwave ovens, VCRs and ot
    • Or if you were both an engineer and a computer programmer, you'd probably slip a pic chip in there and a couple of sensors, perhaps one for moisture and one for temperature, and it would still only cost twenty bucks. Long live assembly language.
  • Because the consumer doesn't even know the damn things are running Linux. The manufacturers are doing a great job of taking Linux and producing custom interfaces (when needed) for their products so the average user doesn't even know they're running Linux. Maybe the desktop Linux folks should take notice...
  • I have a DVB-S (digital satellite TV) receiver that runs Linux, and I must say it is a very nice box for the computer hobbyist, and probably still quite usable for the normal consumer.

    Out of the box one can just use it as a receiver, but once you connect it to your LAN (ethernet) you can browse its contents using SMB (it runs SAMBA) or a web browser. You can edit its configuration files using "vi" over telnet, you can NFS-mount a disk on another system and record movies on it, plug in a USB memory key and
    • What "we" have to avoid, I think, is to criticize manfacturers that use Linux and do not at the same time make the box open to access like described above. Especially bad is to "hack" into Linux-based devices beyond what one can be reasonably expected to do with something you own, and to blackmail manufacturers into releasing information and source code of proprietary parts.

      Hmm... You seem to think people don't own what they buy. If manufacturers think they can win market share through lock-in rather th
      • But should that lesson be "DON'T USE LINUX"?

        I already said: "beyond what one can be reasonably expected to do with something you own".
        • But should that lesson be "DON'T USE LINUX"?

          Perhaps we're thinking of different examples. Personally, I can't think of a single instance where someone bought a device, went home, took it apart and did something truly harmful to the manufacturer with it. Well, aside from review it and publicize the fact it was a piece of crap, but that's protected speech.

          So, for me, the "expected limit" would be. Well... there is no limit. What is it I *shouldn't* do with something I buy that isn't already illegal in

  • Economics trumps ideology (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The bottom line is that it's always the bottom line with such applications. Companies don't give a flying fig about free as in speech, but free as in beer gets their attention every time.

  • I believe.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by bludstone ( 103539 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:34PM (#6828059)
    ...the CHILDREN are our future. Teach them well, and let them lead the way.

    This Linux thing is just a fad.

  • just wait till next year (Score:4, Funny)

    by rtphokie ( 518490 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:35PM (#6828067)
    Linux is the Future

    I'm sure I've seen this article many many times over the past several years. Linux zealots are starting to sound like Red Sox fans.

  • Summary of Events So Far (Score:5, Funny)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Friday August 29, 2003 @04:36PM (#6828086) Homepage Journal
    • Consumer Electronics Industry: Linux is the future!
    • IBM and SGI: Linux is the present!
    • Microsoft: Linux is the past!
    • SCO: Linux is ours!
    • Peruvian and German Governments: A Linux for Every Desktop!
    • SCO: Only if you pay us loads of money!
    • US Government: Terrorist nations can deploy Linux against us in less than 45 minutes!
    • NSA: That's ok, 'cos we already use it, and we've made it more secure. So there.
    • NASA: Oh, and we've made it so Linux can turn trash PCs into supercomputer clusters.
    • US Government: Erk!
    • China: Yaaay! We get to build ourselves a supercompuer! We don't have much to use one for, so we'll probably end up using it for beating everyone else's score on distributed.net, and playing massive games of Quake.
    • Popular press: Linux? That's something those long-haired wierdos use. No story here.


    If people think the techno world is boring, they should take another look. Some of this stuff really does make "Dilbert" look better than real life.

  • It's been that for 30 years.

  • Talk about Linux (Score:2, Interesting)

    by redcaboodle ( 622288 )
    I was in my local photo shop today, collecting some films. Some people wanted to have prints of their digital photos. "No problem" says the photo guy, we just burn those pics from the smartcard onto a CD and send that in to the Lab.
    He fires up the burner - a standalone device with a reader for every digital cam storage medium and a built-in burner and... yes.. its a linux boot sequence and the touch-screen app ran on X. This thing needs drivers for a lot of exotic stuff and was up within 15 seconds.
    Quit
  • This article claims the profit margins for consumer electronics manufacturers is 1-2%. But I've also frequently heard that the total markup-inflated price of CE is typically about 10x the manufacturing cost. So, if a designer wants to sell a stereo receiver that'll cost $500 in the store, the total cost of parts and labor to build it needs to be about $50. So my question, for anyone who may be knowledgeable in this area, is who are the other players in this mark-up game and how does the breakdown look.
    • Profit = gross revenue - expenses. That means all expenses, from the assembly line to the cost of the parts to the truck driver to shrinkage to the engineer to the PHBs to the marketing dept. etc. etc.. you get the picture. Not to mention that the wholesaler and retailer probably get something like 1/2 of the sticker price.

      What would your homebrew equipment cost if you had to pay yourself a wage at reasonable market value?

  • Another Linux market... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hahn ( 101816 ) on Friday August 29, 2003 @06:20PM (#6829119) Homepage
    I'm a physician at a large academic hospital. The healthcare area is one that I think Linux is ideally suited for. Few have attempted it and yet, if you look at the potential benefits, it's almost a no-brainer:

    - A large hospital will have hundreds if not thousands of computer terminals. Linux could significantly reduce hospital overhead costs, which nowadays is being given a high priority.

    - Linux doesn't currently have the virus/worm problem that Windows has. This is majorly problematic for Windows in the healthcare industry where almost any informatics downtime is unacceptable. Healthcare informatics is rapidly turning into a mission-critical enterprise as more and more hospitals depend on their computer systems to deliver information.

    - There's no reason healthcare workers couldn't use the StarOffice/OpenOffice Suites for applications. Most users' needs are pretty basic and documents regarding patients are supposed to be held strictly confidential as well.

    - Which brings me to the one downside. Few medical informatics applications are written for Linux. Those that have been are open-source and are developed very slowly since very few programmers out there know anything about (or care to know anything about) healthcare informatics application requirements.


    • Which brings me to the one downside. Few medical informatics applications are written for Linux. Those that have been are open-source and are developed very slowly since very few programmers out there know anything about (or care to know anything about) healthcare informatics application requirements

      The only way to correct this is to demand it from the vendors. They'll be sure to bitch and moan, and attempt to label those demanding it as irelevant hippie wackos. But their competitor that then does it

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