[yocto-ab] Introducing IoT Reference OS Kit

[Cobbley, David A]

Hi Philip,

Thanks for the thoughtful questions.  I’ll answer inline below.

--David C

From: Philip Balister <philip at balister.org>
Date: Friday, January 20, 2017 at 7:53 AM
To: David Cobbley <david.a.cobbley at intel.com>, "yocto-ab at yoctoproject.org" <yocto-ab at yoctoproject.org>
Subject: Re: [yocto-ab] Introducing IoT Reference OS Kit

David, this is great news.

As an advisory board member, I'd like to understand what this mean the
Yocto Project is committing to though. Are these specific layers for
building existing software, new software packages, etc.
[DAC} This is a set of layers maintained in their own repo, just as Poky is published now. Some recipes would obviously be referenced/reused from other layers, while this would contain some new recipes for (x) along with their dependencies (y), the point being that we would want to stick to the proven format for repository and release that already works for Poky


We already have one reference distribution (Poky). How does this differ?
[DAC] Poky is designed to be as general purpose as an embedded (reference) distribution can possibly be, to be used as a learning tool and as a starting point. If someone were to base a product on Poky, and many people do, they need to modify it to their own requirements and then add their own application on top. IRK by contrast is a much narrower reference kit designed for a specific purpose, so much of the grunt work is done for specific IOT devices/gateways.
[DAC]  We also see the potential for other reference kits in the future that would contain different types of recipes. IRK, for example, contains support for industrial robotics. Maybe an Automotive Reference Kit (in cooperation with AGL?) might contain CAN bus support. Other vertical ref kits would presumably contain support for standards or features relevant to those specific verticals.

Finally, we need to understand what this does to the manpower needed to
support the Project. Richard is constantly reminding us we need more
people working on core pieces of the project, will this lead to
additional work for already overloaded people?
[DAC] Excellent concern. Intel is donating both the software and the maintainership of this reference kit, so no additional work would be required by the project. As stated in another response, we are taking on the full burden of the kit as defined today, not asking the community to support this.  Those who want to extend/expand this kit for other domains or purposes, or create their own reference kits, would also own the incremental work.


Philip

On 01/19/2017 04:27 PM, Cobbley, David A wrote:
As Yocto Project focuses over time to better support new and distinct verticals (to attract a greater membership), we wanted to help that effort by offering a reference distribution that enables key components and technologies relevant for IoT. The IoT Reference OS Kit is a new set of Yocto Project metadata layers and infrastructure geared towards IoT usages. The reference kit will introduce the concept of a "profile" - an image configuration that integrates a subset of the new content allowing the content to work seamlessly together. Examples of planned profiles are industrial, gateway and machine vision, but others could be included. Each profile implements certain validated key use cases.  The reference kit would follow the Yocto Project release cadence, publish the content in the Yocto Project git and use the Yocto Project Bugzilla for feature and bug tracking.
Initially, the code which will be contributed by Intel will support selected Intel development platforms through the meta-intel BSP layer, but other contributors are welcome to port and test the reference kit on additional architectures, or perhaps create distributions specific to other verticals. Intel will maintain the IoT Reference OS Kit content relevant to Intel Architecture, and Yocto Project will benefit from the project through expansion of the amount of well-maintained content. The reference kit will provide an additional validation mechanism for the large part of OE-Core as well as extending the testing to metadata in other layers and we would naturally contribute relevant improvements and bug fixes we come across with during our development cycle also to core Yocto and OE-Core and those other layers as appropriate.
Some planned high level features for the reference kit are:
-OTA SW update mechanism
-3rd party application support
-Comprehensive sensor support (mraa/upm/IoTivity)
-BT Audio
-Industrial robotics support
-Machine Vision support including Realsense enabling
-Security enhancements like TPM,IMA/EVM and Secure Boot reference implementation
We are excited to contribute these new IOT-friendly features to the Yocto Project, and will be releasing the initial implementation into the project soon.
--David Cobbley
Intel SSG/Open Source Technology Center

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