[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
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