Industry-grade Linux: Outcome of a recent survey and follow-up

By Carsten Emde of OSADL
Time: 15:30 Room: S6

Abstract

The use of the Linux kernel and other Open Source software in embedded systems poses a completely different challenge than, for example, in standard PCs. The latter usually use uniform programs, and there are ready-made distributions for this. In contrast, embedded systems encompass a wide variety of use cases for which there is no standard solution. Instead, the software must be assembled from source code repositories, or existing distributions must be adapted. In both cases, however, features may be missing, which then have to be provided individually. To make this more efficient, providing missing features should be managed collectively, but before doing so it must be known which features are most needed. For this reason, an online survey was recently conducted, adressing the following areas:

• Development: Low memory footprint, hardware virtualization, containers, unsupported hardware, better mainline support, cloud connectivity
• Management: Life cycle more than 10 years, security updates, continuous integration, license compliance

Despite the low response rate, it can be concluded that participants primarily want better support for security updates and license compliance. This presentation will explain the results and show what steps have already been taken to implement them.

Biography

Carsten Emde looks back on more than 25 years of experience as a software developer, system integrator and trainer. His specialties are graphical user interfaces, machine vision and real-time operating systems as well as the legal aspects of using and distributing Open Source software. Since the foundation of the Open Source Automation Development Lab (OSADL) eG in 2005, he has been the company's general manager.