June 03, 2009, 11:35 AM — "If the market gives you lemons, make lemonade" is the thinking behind the newest version of MontaVista 6, a commercial Linux implementation for mobile and embedded devices.
Today, many chipmakers and device manufacturers pick a Linux distribution, or craft their own, cobble together bits and pieces of various other open source projects, and extensively customize it with new code, all to fit a specific CPU. It's a laborious process, and turns these vendors into operating system suppliers to themselves.
But they lack the resources to do high-quality, continuous software testing and quality control, write and maintain drivers and middleware, and continually optimize "their" Linux for the given chip architecture.
MontaVista 6, to be released in July, does away with those burdens, according to the software vendor. Faced with three main processor platforms, from Freescale, Intel and Texas Instruments (the "lemons" in this case), MontaVista created for each a chip-specific implementation of its commercial Linux software. At the same time, each new implementation (the “lemonade”) is compatible with the previous release of the chipmaker's Linux, and incorporates code from it as needed.
The result, say MontaVista executives: These vendors are able to quickly migrate with minimal disruption to a full, and fully supported, commercial Linux tailored to their chip's requirements.
In effect, MontaVista has created a system, dubbed the MontaVista Integration Platform (MIP) that lets them systematically adapt their core Linux distribution to different underlying chip architectures, and incorporate third-party code.
For each chip-specific MIP, MontaVista has created what it calls the Zone Content Server: a central online service where software engineers can find, track, and download every bit of the latest open source code they need for their requirements, instead of sorting through separate, and separately maintained open source project sites. An initial build of an embedded Linux typically can take 2,000 to 3,000 separate files, according to Brad Dixon, the vendor's director of product management.
At least some of those files are based from the chipmakers themselves: MontaVista says it has forged close working relationships with all three silicon vendors.
Creating a system for customizing and maintaining its Linux implementation, instead of just writing three different versions, required extensive internal changes and technology investments at MontaVista.
"We had to make a significant technology investment in our engineering team, and revamp our product build system to customize [MontaVista Linux] at the source code level," Dixon says.
To enable all this, MontaVista relies on adapting two key open source systems. One is an innovative deployment of GIT, an open source, distributed version control system, originally written by Linus Torvalds in early 20005 and designed to be very fast. "It's GIT that lets us customize and mashup content from various sources," Dixon says. "What we're doing in MV6 would not be possible without GIT."
The second is BitBake, a build system for complex embedded Linux distributions. According to MontaVista, at least one of its rivals uses a proprietary system for these tasks instead.
MontaVista 6 is now in beta release. It's scheduled to be available in July. Per-developer licensing varies but starts at $10,000, which includes full access to the relevant MIP Zone Content Server, and support.
