Here comes Linux
Sony, Panasonic Tap Linux For Consumer Electronics
Wed Dec 18,11:36 PM ET Add Technology - TechWeb to My Yahoo!
Gregg Keizer, TechWeb News, InternetWeek
Flash from Tokyo: Your next digital video recorder, television, camcorder, or home theater system could be running Linux (news - web sites).
Sony and Matsushita (known in the U.S. as Panasonic) on Wednesday announced that they would jointly flesh out a modified Linux operating system to power home consumer electronics devices, and share the fruits of labor with other companies.
Linux is best known as an operating system for servers, but in recent months, it's been making inroads as an embedded OS for controlling home electronics gear.
The two Japanese companies -- fierce competitors in the consumer electronics market -- plan to wrap up operating system development by March 2003. The resulting source code will be available free of charge under terms of the General Public License (GPL) “in order to encourage its broader use throughout the industry,” according to a statement released Wednesday by the companies. GPL essentially lets businesses or individuals modify software as long as they make those modifications available to others.
Although neither Sony nor Matsushita would disclose specific products that may be embedded with Linux, it's a good bet that one of the first will be digital video recorders, devices that store television programs on a hard disk for later playback. The TiVo (news - web sites) digital video recorder runs Linux, and Sony already uses Linux-based software in its Cocoon digital video recorder, which launched last month in Japan.
The reason why Sony and Matsushita are turning to Linux, the companies stated, is to obtain faster boot times and better performance.
“This is absolutely great news for consumers,” said Murry Shohat, executive director the Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC), a trade association devoted to promoting standards and deployment of Linux as an embedded OS. (Both Sony and Matsushita are members of ELC.) “Consumers can expect very robust, extremely reliable products when they're running embedded Linux.”
The Sony-Matsushita announcement also validates the significance of Linux as an up-and-coming embedded OS, said Shohat.
“Linux is the only successful OS to offer an alternative to the hegemony we see in the current marketplace,” he said, clearly alluding to Microsoft. Rather than roll their own OS as an alternative to Microsoft, companies can turn to the Linux kernel as a starting point.
“That bootstraps the development process,” he said, and results in faster product development, and should produce lower prices for the consumer.
Although ELC has yet to release its embedded Linux platform standard -- that's scheduled for Dec. 30, according to Shohat -- he firmly expects that the result of the Sony-Matsushita OS development deal will comply with that standard. Matsushita, he notes, has a place on the standards-setting committee.
Sony and Matsushita also say that they're considering forming a Linux forum for digital consumer electronics to share the results of their development and expand on them. Among the companies Sony and Matsushita cited are giants such as Hitachi, IBM, NEC, Philips, Samsung, and Sharp.
“Another major world power in the consumer electronics market will be making a similar announcement soon,” Shohat said. Although he wouldn't reveal the company -- citing non-disclosure restrictions until the end of the year -- he did say that it was one of the firms mentioned by Sony and Matsushita in their forum-building plans.
