[yocto] Moving angstrom under the yocto banner

[Darren Hart]

On 03/30/2012 05:53 PM, Koen Kooi wrote:
> 
> Op 30 mrt. 2012, om 17:28 heeft Darren Hart het volgende geschreven:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 03/30/2012 05:08 PM, Koen Kooi wrote:
>>> 
>>> Op 30 mrt. 2012, om 16:52 heeft Darren Hart het volgende
>>> geschreven:
>>> 
>>> [snip]
>>> 
>>>> On 03/30/2012 02:11 PM, Richard Purdie wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> The criteria I see for being part of the Yocto Project are:
>>>>> 
>>>>> a) Sharing the project's objectives (e.g. making embedded
>>>>> Liunx development easier) b) Willing to be part of the Yocto
>>>>> Project's governance structure c) Bringing something
>>>>> new/beneficial to the Yocto Project (often with mutual
>>>>> benefit) d) Have some kind of sustainable resource plan
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I'll take a couple careful steps into this arena to offer just
>>>> one more possible criteria.
>>>> 
>>>> One of the touted goals/advantages/benefits of using the Yocto 
>>>> Project is to work with a vetted set of sources that are known
>>>> to all work together, having had some level of QA performed.
>>>> This is something the poky repository accomplishes by bringing
>>>> specifc versions of bitbake and oe-core together (along with
>>>> some other tooling). At some point, this gets rolled up into a
>>>> release of the Yocto Project: 0.9, 1.1, and soon 1.2. It's
>>>> common for someone to refer to these release points as the base
>>>> for their BSP.
>>>> 
>>>> It therefor seems reasonable to me for a distribution
>>>> definition (which is how I think of Angstrom - but feel free to
>>>> correct me Koen) to make a statement like "This release of
>>>> Angstrom builds with the Yocto Project X.Y release."
>>> 
>>> Yes, but see below
>>> 
>>>> I believe this is the sort of language that most outside 
>>>> developers would immediately understand and associate with
>>>> being part of the Yocto Project.
>>> 
>>> What does a 'yocto project release' actually mean? Right now it
>>> looks more like a 'poky (the distro) release'. Since angstrom
>>> builds on oe-core and bitbake directly the statement (in the
>>> current situation) would be more like:
>>> 
>> 
>> /me hands koen a real MUA that wraps at < 80 characters... and
>> wraps his mail for him...
>> 
>> (everyone else gets a pass, but you?  ;-)
>> 
>> I see the "poky" distro definition as only a part of the poky 
>> repository, the naming is unfortunate, but I think we can all see
>> past that for the purposes of this discussion. This is part of
>> meta-yocto which will at some point be it's own repository.
>> 
>> So I don't agree with the assertion that it looks more like a "poky
>> the distro release".
> 
> But it is the only component of the YP that gets released as part of
> the YP release, no?
> 
>>> "This release of angstrom builds on oe-core 2012.1, bitbake 
>>> 1.something.x, which matches the YP 1.x release".
>> 
>> 
>> OK. Donning my "Yeah but I have a XYZ and things to get done" hat,
>> I think people will respond more positively to:
>> 
>> "Download the 1.2 Yocto Project release, add meta-angstrom to your 
>> bblayers.conf, and build $IMAGE_TARGET"
>> 
>> than they will to
>> 
>> Download bitbake X.Y, Angstrom X.Y, OE Core X.Y, etc. instructions
>> on setting up the layers, the local.conf, etc etc.
>> 
>> I believe there are some other details the poky repository helps
>> out with (someone more familiar with working with the individual
>> components would have to enumerate these, I honestly don't know
>> what they all are).
>> 
>> And yes, there are the BSP layers to add to each of these
>> scenarios, but that effects each equally.
>> 
>> All that environment setup is something that can make or break the 
>> initial experience. I believe lots of users appreciate not having
>> to pull all the pieces together themselves. (especially those that
>> don't even know what they're not having to do!)
> 
> And that's why angstrom (currently!) only supports setup using the
> angstrom setup-scripts. That contains all the logic that is needed to
> get the right versions. It also contains pretty much all known
> layers, so there's a high likelihood that users will never need to
> open bblayers.conf (either manually or using a script).
> 

CTRL+R

I wonder if there is something Angstrom could contribute to the Yocto
Project in terms of setup scripts...

>> If we move more things under the YP banner and convince
>> subprojects
>>> to adopt the same schedule, we could make statements like:
>>> 
>>> "The Yocto Project 1.x release consist of the following modules:
>>> 
>>> * bitbake 1.x * oe-core 2012.x * poky $DOTT_character * eglibc
>>> 2.17 * pseudo 1.2 * angstrom 2012.04 * meta-xilinx 6.5 ... etc"
>>> 
>> 
>> With the exception of eglibc (I wouldn't want to have to list
>> every package from oe-core and the layers!) this doesn't seem out
>> of line to me.
> 
> I was listing YP projects, not recipes/packages. I guess my point
> about a YP release needing to contain more than one yocto subproject
> got lost :(

Ah yes, and I missed that eglibc is indeed listed on the official list
of projects.

http://www.yoctoproject.org/projects

I don't think it's accurate to say that poky (the distro) is the only
Yocto Project project that is released in the official releases.

The list currently includes:
Poky (bitbake, oe-core, meta-yocto)
  Perhaps the description could be improved upon here.
Cross-Prelink
Eclipse IDE Plug-in
Pseudo
Swabber
AutoBuilder
Application Development Toolkit
Hob
Eglibc

Not all of these projects are part of the poky repository to be sure,
but that doesn't mean they aren't released with a Yocto Project release.
Some things like hob are part of bitbake with some scripts in poky. Some
of these are incorporated directly into oe-core. They could have been
done in meta-yocto instead.... but that wouldn't benefit as many people,
so it's a bit unfair then to only count things that are only in the poky
repository as being released with the Yocto Project release don't you think?

So that brings us back to what does it mean for Angstrom to be a Yocto
Project project I guess?

In my very humble opinion (really), it still makes sense to build
Angstrom with the components in the poky repository as part of a Yocto
Project release. I understand that there is resistance to this idea.
Angstrom has been independent from poky and the Yocto Project in the
past and I can understand not wanting to lose some of that
individuality. However, too much individuality breeds chaos and
fragmentation. These are the waters the Yocto Project is meant to help
people navigate. In my opinion, it is worth building with the poky
repository in order to gain the added cohesion that brings to all the
projects.

Again, this is my PERSONAL opinion. I don't speak in any official
capacity regarding criteria for being part of the Yocto Project, this is
just want makes sense to me.

> 
>>> I think that would make it fit better with the "umbrella
>>> project" idea. "consists" might be a bad choice of words, I blame
>>> the unlimited coffee refills at the diner across the street :)
>> 
>> 
>> And I blame any perceived snarkiness on the migraine and the 4
>> different medications the doc's got me on to try and patch me up to
>> fly on Monday ;-)
> 
> I hope you get well soon!

Thanks ;)

-- 
Darren Hart
Intel Open Source Technology Center
Yocto Project - Linux Kernel