The File - May 1 , 2009 - (Page 1)

India’s fortnightly focus on electronics design May 1-15, 2009 Open source and free love By Dr. Mark Burton Founder, GreenSocs Ltd Chairperson, OCP-IP System Level Design Working Group Richard Stallman, an American software freedom activist and sofware developer, once talked about open source as “free love, not free beer.” It’s a phrase that cuts to the core of open source and helps explain some of its virtues, but, critically, identifies the one key aspect of “Open Source” that is commonly misunderstood and overlooked. Open source software is not free. The upfront costs get confused with the other costs of software ownership. There are two ways in which open source software reduces those costs: 1. Because the source is available, the cost of adoption can be reduced, the software can be tailored to the individual needs (rather than the organisation needing to adjust to the software). 2. Because the source is available, there is an open market for maintenance of the software. Users can fix it themselves, or employ any company to make changes. This open market is the most important feature of open source software especially in today’s economy. The cost of software maintenance is always distributed over the user base of the software. For open source software, there is an open market in that cost. It is not just the software’s owner that has a monopoly on providing that service. This is the key benefit. It means that an organisation can choose to make the fix themselves, to use a geographicallylocal software services company because they require the engineering contact to explain a problem, or to use a more removed—possibly cheaper—alternative. For India, this represents a market opportunity to grow centres of excellence around open source software. This is already happening for the GreenSocs open source SystemC fabric, which has been worked in several countries, including Brazil, Germany, France, the U.K. and, of course, India where a significant amount of development has been done. The widespread and shared cost of maintenance typically means faster and more robust software. This is, of course, a critical factor in choosing open source software. Philosophy or business? The philosophy of open source reduces ownership costs, but open source is not free: there are development costs. continued on page Burton: For India, this represents a market opportunity to grow centres of excellence around open source software. Base your device on Debian, Emdebian By Wookey Free Software Engineer Toby Churchill Ltd Inside Trends 2 3 Is open source safe for high reliability apps? GooglePhone: A case of creative reuse? I have been involved with Debian for almost a decade now, and Embedded Debian almost since it was founded in 2001. I also work with ARM processors and open hardware designs. For the last couple of years I have been working for Toby Churchill, the manufacturer of a communication aid called the Lightwriter, which speaks for people who cannot do it themselves. This device has been GNU/Linux-based since 2003, and the main data processor within it is the open hardware balloonboard supplied by iEndian Ltd. In this article, I will show how you can use the Debian infrastructure to cross-build application software, manage code/ releases and upgrade machines. I will also discuss how Emdebian Grip provides a Debian-compatible base system to run your software on. In order to talk in a more concrete way about how things are done I will use the balloonboard and Lightwriter as real-world examples. These devices are already in use by real companies, and do not just present theoretical possibilities. All the tools that Debian use themselves are available for others to use too—this is a powerful advantage of an open project. We will concentrate on dpkg-cross, apt-cross, reprepro, and the new continued on page In Focus 6 8 Linux eases in-car infotainment design Address AUTOSAR software reuse issues Events 5 INCACEC 2009, Synergy with Energy & India Energy Show, ICSTE 2009, ICEMC2 2009 www.eetindia.com http://www.eetindia.co.in/SEARCH/SUMMARY/industry-news/DATE/GreenSocs.HTM?TheFile_090501 http://www.eetindia.co.in/SEARCH/SUMMARY/new-products/DATE/SystemC.HTM?TheFile_090501 http://www.eetindia.co.in/ART_8800563180_1800000_NT_6f6131d7.HTM?TheFile_090501 http://www.eetindia.co.in/SEARCH/SUMMARY/new-products/DATE/open+source.HTM?TheFile_090501 http://www.embeddeddesignindia.co.in/SEARCH/SUMMARY/technical-articles/GNU.HTM?TheFile_090501 http://www.embeddeddesignindia.co.in/SEARCH/SUMMARY/technical-articles/ARM.HTM?TheFile_090501 http://www.eetindia.com/STATIC/REDIRECT/Newsletter_090501_GS01.htm http://www.eetindia.com/STATIC/REDIRECT/Newsletter_090501_EETI02.htm

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The File - May 1 , 2009

The File - May 1 , 2009