[yocto] Moving angstrom under the yocto banner

[Osier-mixon, Jeffrey]

I have some hope of bringing a little bit of order to the chaos that seems
to be ensuing here. I am speaking here from my own understanding, which may
or may not be correct.

On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Mark Hatle <mark.hatle at windriver.com>wrote:

> On 3/30/12 2:33 PM, Koen Kooi wrote:
>
>>
>> Op 30 mrt. 2012, om 12:26 heeft Mark Hatle het volgende geschreven:
>>
>>  On 3/30/12 1:44 PM, Koen Kooi wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> RP said I should raise this on the yocto lists, so here it is:
>>>>
>>>> The Angstrom core team would like to move angstrom under the yocto
>>>> banner so
>>>> we can formally claim to be 'yocto'.
>>>>
>>>
>>> For it to be on the yocto project web site, it just need to have the
>>> layers hosted on the git.yoctoproject.org.  But there is no "yocto"..
>>> It's the Yocto Project, Poky, or specific git repositories.  There is no
>>> reason we can't have an angstrom repository.  It could be in a similar
>>> format to the Poky repository (everything combined for a single download),
>>> or it could be a layer [or layers] that sit on top of Poky.
>>>
>>
>> Why on top of poky? I do not want poky, nor do my customers, oe-core is
>> what
>> we need and want. This proposal to move angstrom under yocto is targeted
>> at
>> eliminating 'poky' from the stack while still being able to say 'yocto'.
>>
>
> Poky is a repository made up of bitbake + oe-core + meta-yocto, as well as
> a distribution definition (in meta-yocto).  I assume angstrom has it's own
> distribution definition.
>
> So my question is why NOT on top of Poky (the repository, not distribution
> definition)?


I think I understand what Koen is after - an alternative reference
distribution for the Yocto Project. I think this issue provides us with the
opportunity to really nail down what is, and what isn't, the Yocto Project.
(Since this discussion is happening on the yocto mailing list.)

I see it as:
- a build took (BitBake), whose maintenance is shared with OE
- a set of metadata:
  some maintained under the Yocto Project banner (e.g. meta-yocto &
linux-yocto)
  some shared with others (oe-core)
  some outside but hosted on yp.org
- several build-related tools utilities (e.g. swabber, ADT, etc)
- embedded related libraries (e.g. EGLIBC)

What these all have in common is that they are related to embedded Linux
development, they are maintained under the Yocto Project banner, and they
are all tested together in the course of our release process.

I think most of the confusion among Yocto, Poky, and OE comes from legacy
descriptions. At one time, Poky was itself a build "system", and the
various layers were not separate projects. It was similar to OE classic.
Now functionality all lives in separate layers, most of them
interchangeable between Yocto and OE.

Definition-wise, we need to remember that the Yocto Project is a *project*,
not a distribution, and not a consortium. It isn't a sticker one could put
on a box to say "yocto inside". As the project website says, it
provides templates,
tools and methods to help you create custom Linux-based systems. It is not
a distribution itself, but it does have a reference system called Poky that
is working, tested representation of all of these things together.

Thus, there is no "yocto distribution". I think it would be correct to say
that any release that uses the linux-yocto and/or meta-yocto layer would be
representative of the Yocto Project. If a distro uses BitBake, oe-core, and
a BSP maintained or obtained from a Yocto Project repository, that's a grey
area. If a distro uses nothing maintained on yoctoproject.org, I would
suggest that it is not representative of the Yocto Project, although it may
be compatible with it.

BitBake and oe-core are shared components between Yocto and OE, so by this
circuitous definition, Angstrom could be considered representative of the
Yocto Project to some extent, as it uses Yocto Project components as its
upstream. Poky does as well, but Poky uses only Yocto-maintained components
(I think?) and represents all of the various components of the build system
working together, and it is tested as such.

Does that mean that Poky is more representative of the Yocto Project than
Angstrom? Possibly so. But it does not mean Angstrom is unrepresentative.
Angstrom uses some Yocto-maintained components and some that are not
maintained by the Yocto Project, just as Ubuntu uses some Debian components
and some that are not maintained or supported by Debian.


>
>> We both know that saying it is 'yocto' is wrong and misleading, but that's
>> what users are asking for and yocto advocates seem to push. Just watch
>> the ELC
>> videos for yocto related presentations, 'yocto' and 'poky' are used
>> interchangeably in most of them.
>>
>> A 'reference' should be just that, a reference, not a mandated part.
>>
>
> It's hard to call something Yocto Project based unless it used something
> from the Yocto Project.  meta-yocto being on of those components.
>
> There is enough confusion about yocto vs poky vs..  It's slowly being
> reconciled and defined.. but it's a slow process for all of us.


Angstrom does use oe-core, but I don't think it uses linux-yocto (right?)
and definitely not meta-yocto. In fact, I don't think it depends on any
components that are solely maintained under the Yocto Project banner. It
does depend on two components with shared responsibility between Yocto and
OE, namely oe-core and bitbake.

That does not stop it from being represented under the Yocto Project if
that is the maintainer's wish and if that representation is amenable to the
project's technical maintainers and the Advisory Board. If the goal is to
avoid future misunderstandings, however, this may not be the best way to do
it. I think community education may be the best way to address that
problem, and in order to do that, everyone involved needs to understand and
agree on the definitions. As Mark says, we are getting there, slowly.

My feeling is that if Koen wants Angstrom to be represented under the Yocto
Project banner, it can do so if the Yocto Project maintainers agree to do
it. If Koen wants Angstrom to be considered representative of the Yocto
Project, it can do so to the extent that it is based on the components it
uses that are maintained (fully or partially) by projects under the Yocto
Project.

Again, someone please let me know if I am mistaken.

-- 
Jeff Osier-Mixon http://jefro.net/blog
Yocto Project Community Manager @Intel http://yoctoproject.org
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