[yocto-ab] Terminology - Some draft definitions

[Ed Nash]

On 05/16/2011 09:49 AM, Richard Purdie wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-05-16 at 09:27 -0400, Ed Nash wrote:
>> On 05/16/2011 07:50 AM, Richard Purdie wrote:
>>> In the last steering group meeting I promised to write something down about what
>>> some of the words we use mean, particularly what OE, Poky and Yocto all
>>> mean. What follows is a first draft style start at this:
>>
>> Thanks Richard for getting this started.
>>
>>> Yocto Project - The overall project aiming to make Linux on "embedded"
>>> platforms succeed by providing industry-quality tooling for developers
>>
>> "industry quality"? How does this differ from "commercial quality"?
>
> I suspect commercial quality would be better :)

Not very reassuring to a commercial embedded linux company :(

>
>>> and making Linux easier to use in "embedded" products. It's scope
>>> includes anything that can further that objective.
>>
>> cool.
>>
>>> OpenEmbedded - An architecture and build system technology in the form
>>> of an open source project.
>>
>> What does "architecture" apply to? What software components are
>> compliant with this architecture? Does this represent choices I have to
>> make in my product design? Oh wait, reading below "OpenEmbedded Core",
>> it sounds like architecture means "how you write a recipe" - correct?
>
> Yes, the architecture refers to the metadata format and the process by
> which the system takes than and produces the end result.
>
>>> Bitbake - The tool used by OpenEmbedded to parse the metadata and
>>> execute tasks
>>
>> Crystal clear! :)
>>
>>> OpenEmbedded Core - A core set of metadata which most embedded style
>>> systems commonly need and conforms to the OpenEmbedded architecture.
>>> Shared by Yocto and OpenEmbedded and has an aim of achieving the highest
>>> metadata quality at the expense of some additional process.
>>
>> "process"? Can you give an example.
>
> We're using a pull model with a clear submission process and that
> changes need to be of a certain quality (e.g. changes shouldn't break QA
> tests or they ultimately would get backed out).
>
>>> Meta-OpenEmbedded - Metadata for less commonly used software components
>>> of embedded systems. Has different submission and quality objectives.
>>
>> I follow, though it begs the question what are the submission and
>> quality objectives?
>
> Ensuring recent versions are used, that they build/run for all core CPU
> architectures, that the recipes are cleanly and clearly written, patches
> clearly documented and so on. The submission part of this is because
> meta-oe might be under a different less stringent process to that of
> OE-Core.
>
>>> Poky - A vetted and QA'd combination of bitbake, OpenEmbedded-Core,
>>> documentation, some reference board support and any needed glue to
>>> provide support for a defined architecture list. It is supplied in a
>>> pre-integrated package which has known QA tests and results for its
>>> releases which provide a stable base people can build upon. Its provided
>>> and maintained by the Yocto project.
>>
>> Frankly, this sounds like a great definition for the yocto project!
>
> There is more to the yocto project than this. There are several other
> components such as:
>
> * Kernel Tooling
> * Pseudo
> * Swabber
> * ADT IDE plugins (Eclipse)
> * Image Creator UI
>
> and Poky is just one component part of this list, albeit a significant
> one. How we better communicate this I don't know but I still believe we
> need a name for the "build system" component of Yocto. As soon as we
> think otherwise we limit ourselves just to being about a build system
> and miss a key part of what we're trying to do which is develop a *set*
> of embedded tools, not just the build system.

So why not take the above (from "There are several other..." to "Poky is 
just one component part of this list") and make that the definition of 
yocto. Maybe add a phrase to each bullet and add the bullet "Poky - the 
build system".

Also, your answers clarify a lot. SO perhaps along with the description, 
we could include an FAQ.

Ed