Facebook Joins Linaro Linux-on-ARM Effort 60
dgharmon writes "It has been more than two years since Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson, and Texas Instruments formed a non-profit software company called Linaro to help focus the disparate efforts to get Linux running well on ARM processors and system-on-chip designs. A slew of companies, some new to the ARM racket, have joined the Linaro effort – and as of Thursday afternoon, so has social media juggernaut Facebook."
Makes sense. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Um... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, that's not what Linaro is about. They are looking forward to stop the explosion of code and architecture within the ARM familly. No two ARM machine boots the same. No two ARM processors expose component the same way. You did not read Linus saying "what about stoping the ARM crap?"
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/08/18/1728227/arm-is-a-promising-platform-but-needs-to-learn-from-the-pc [slashdot.org]
Re:Makes sense. (Score:4, Informative)
FTFA: "Facebook and AMD are joining the Linaro Enterprise Group, which was formed to focus on "the development of foundational software for ARM server Linux," as the announcement put it."
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Stealing Credit (Score:4, Informative)
According to the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], these guys are simply trying to simplify, optimize, and reduce fragmentation in the ARM/Linux world. They're not trying to claim anything except that their tools and validation suite make your life easier.
It's sort of like the Linux Standard Base, if you remember that initiative. The LSB was invented to address concerns of fragmentation and difficulty in porting applications to Linux, because the distributions were so radically different from each other. While it didn't work out as well as hoped, it did manage to reduce the idiosyncrasies.
Re:Stealing Credit (Score:2, Informative)
For that matter Linaro has been making ARM patchsets for various hardware for over 10 years (maybe even longer!). Probably 3/4 of the ARM Linux hardware you'll find (be it routers, IPCams, print servers, etc) will be running some kernel with a -linaro in it, and even the ones that aren't usually have a -linaro in the gcc/binutils buildversion.
They're just trying to reduce their own costs by consolidating the majority of necessary changes into patchsets that will be accepted into the kernel, so that minimal additional, potentially conflicting, code will end up outside of the kernel in the long run.
Can't fault them for wanting to make both our and their lives easier.