[lsb-discuss] DAM-4 summary points

John Cherry cherry at linux-foundation.org
Mon Jun 18 14:43:25 PDT 2007


DAM-4 Summary Points
--------------------

- The Desktop architects meeting yielded a new set of priorities 
  for the community.  The priorities continue to evolve and shift.  
  The new priorities set by the Desktop Architects for and with 
  the community are as follows: 

                Multimedia 
                Packaging 
                Developer Tools 
                Power Management 
                World Typography 
                Printing 

- The gstreamer and helix communities agreed to engage in the 
   analysis of their respective multimedia frameworks to advance 
   the development of Linux sound solutions.  Linux distribution 
   representatives agreed to evaluate the low level audio interfaces 
   and to recommend standard audio and multimedia stack 
   implementations.  OSS announced that they have moved their code 
   into the open source, providing more options in the audio stack.

  Breakout notes:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Dam-4_breakout_multimedia

- The LF DAM-4 packaging workgroup included representatives from 
  the distributions, ISVs, enterprise I/T, individual users and 
  open source software application owners/maintainers.   The 
  discussion started to identify the viewpoints of the stakeholders 
  and what is required to improve Linux application packaging for 
  all communities.  Particular focus on the user experience, how to 
  manage trusted repositories, package standardization, integration 
  and testing.   The communities will continue to refine these 
  packaging requirements on the LSB packaging mailing list.

  Breakout notes:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Dam-4_breakout_packaging

- D-BUS was actively discussed by the desktop architects. The meeting 
  included representatives from both the KDE and GNOME communities 
  who agreed to issue the following joint statement on D-BUS "Both 
  KDE and GNOME committed to D-BUS at DAM-4, and to a common set of 
  interfaces for desktop services." 

- The desktop architects agreed to extend standard internationalized 
  text layouts mechanisms and font management.  Adopt HarfBuzz as an 
  open standard to compliment FreeType and Font Config. (HarfBuzz is 
  an OpenType Layout engine.) 

- The discussion on developer tools surfaced Eclipse as an IDE 
  solution for the gaps found in other existing developer tools now 
  widely used by the community, like gdb. 

- Recent improvements in power management have shown up to 20% better
  power utilization in typical Linux desktops and laptops.  Developers
  continue to use power monitoring tools to evaluate power usage and 
  to develop multiple-state power decisions.  Good, auto-magic power
  management should be pushed into the kernel and into the driver 
  level when possible, but power policy can be managed in user space.  
  The general power management case is pretty well covered.  However, 
  more device/peripheral support is needed to take advantage of low 
  power modes beyond just the power modes of the processor.  Power 
  management developers are meeting next week (June 25-26) in Ottawa 
  to continue vital power management discussions.


https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/linux-pm/2007-May/012759.html

- The printing team discussion : Distro independent printer driver 
  DDK (driver development kit) The DDK will allow printer 
  manufacturers to target multiple Linux distributions with their 
  drivers, reducing the time and expense it takes for them to support 
  Linux.  Linux users no longer need to worry about compatibility 
  between their printer and distribution. 

- A record number of desktop architects from the Linux distributions, 
  hardware and software vendors that support Linux, and open desktop 
  organizations attended and participated in the Desktop Architects 
  Meeting, a regular meeting of the open desktop architects.  

It was great to see many of you at the Google facility in Mountain View.
It was difficult to catch all the topics, so please add your summaries
on this mailing lists.  I'll continue to add presentations to the DAM-4
site as they come in (there were a couple of late-breaking
presentations).

http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/DAM-4_Presentations

Power management discussion will continue next week at OLS.  I believe
the sessions on June 25-26 will be led by Len Brown.

https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/linux-pm/2007-May/012759.html

Relating to world typography, Ed Trager is hosting a text layout summit
at aKademy in a couple of weeks as well.

http://akademy2007.kde.org/codingmarathon/textlayoutsummit.php

Thanks again to the Linux Foundation Desktop Linux workgroup for
sponsoring and coordinating DAM-4.  It was a good time for collaboration
for meeting the architects and developers in the desktop community.  I
notice many other collaboration meetings outside of the planned
breakouts.  When the right people get together, good things just happen.
There were some hacking sessions in mobile space and some genuine
interest from the kernel developers in desktop activities, including
power management.  Thanks to the LSB developers that joined our sessions
and participated in the breakouts.

Perhaps the most interesting points relating to the acceleration of the
use of Linux came from our mobile Linux representatives.  David "Lefty"
Schlesinger gave a talk on the top issues facing the deployment of Linux
on mobile devices.  He basically stated that there were no roadblocks!
Just watch the deployment of handheld mobile devices running Linux this
year.  The forecast for the next few years is great.  While things like
power management could always be better, there are no real showstoppers
for mobile deployments. 

Cheers,
John






More information about the lsb-discuss mailing list