OpenmokoFramework

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Introduction


Note: This is the (ongoing) description of the new framework architecture that is in development. See OpenmokoOldFramework for the framework architecture of 2007.1 and 2007.2 and NeoSoftwareStack for the current status (which has nothing to do yet with this framework)

Contents

Answering the TOP x questions

  • Question 1: Is this a part of the current images yet?
  • Answer: No.
  • Question 2: Is this the mystic ASU?
  • Answer: No.
  • Question 3: When can I see this as part of an image?
  • Answer: See roadmap at the bottom of this document. It's going to be an interesting autumn and winter '08 ;)
  • Question 4: What's the current status?
  • Answer: See right below:

Purposes

  • Give people the infrastructure to create solid and exciting software products based on the Openmoko platform
  • Support competing UIs while collaborating on developing services
  • Encourage framework users (e.g. application developers) to also contribute to the framework

Requirements

  • Make it simple
  • Concentrate on core services
  • Be programming language agnostic
  • Be UI toolkit agnostic
  • Try to reuse existing technologies as much as possible, but not at the cost of a bad API

How to achieve that technically

  • Chose Dbus as the collaboration line. Below dbus, we can work together. Above dbus, we can differentiate.
  • Expose features through dbus APIs implemented by UI-agnostic and language-agnostic services (daemons).
  • Optimize for Openmoko devices, but support multiple architectures and purposes through plugin interfaces and suitable hardware abstraction mechanisms.
  • Be not afraid of reinventing the wheel for a wheel-barrow if all the existing wheels are made for sports cars.

Mandatory Readings

What this is NOT about

This initiative does not cover low level services such as

  • Bootloader, Kernel, or System Init.

This initiative does not cover high level services such as

  • X-Window-System, Window Manager, UI Toolkits,
  • Application Launchers, Applications, or Fancy UIs.

Architectural Overview

frontside

Software Components

We differenciate between low-level and high-level services -- dbus will be used to communicate horizontally and vertically.

Low-Level Services

Device Control

The low level device control service manages peripheral control, i.e. controlling power for individual subsystems such as

  • GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, as well as
  • Backlight brightness and power,
  • turning LEDs on and off, etc.

It also deals with

  • charging, suspend/resume,
  • accellerometers, and buttons.

Last but not least, it sends notifications about the user's activity so that listeners have a chance to

  • change to powersaving modes, or
  • lock the device.

We implement the following software for that:

Audio

The low level audio service relies on a working alsa device driver. On top of that, there are two components:

  1. gstreamer
  2. pulseaudio

Gstreamer is to be used for all kinds of event sounds where a) multiple audio formats need to be supported and b) a latency of about one second is acceptable. This goes for e.g. ring tones, welcome tones, plug indication.

Pulseaudio is to be used for event sounds, where low-latency is necessary, e.g. touch click sounds and UI event acknowledge sounds. Pulseaudio is our general all-purpose mixer. Gstreamer will use the pulseaudio sink to feed audio through.

GSM

The low level GSM services expect a modem complying to GSM 07.07, GSM 07.05, and assorted GSM specifications, talking an AT-protocol over a serial line. If GSM 07.10 is supported, we use the multiplexing daemon

to export virtual serial lines over -- again -- AT-protocol can be spoken.

Bluetooth

The low level Bluetooth services rely on the official Linux Bluetooth subsystem:

GPS

The low level GPS services assume a GPS device that talks NMEA over a device node. We rely on the following software:

Network

The low level networking service assumes network interfaces, such as USB, Ethernet, Wifi, etc. We rely on the following software here:

  • Network Manager or Intel Connection Manager (undecided yet)
  • ppp

High Level

Usage

The Usage subsystem is coordinating application I/O requirements preventing. Applications are not supposed to turn on or off devices, since they do not have any knowledge about concurrent applications that may be also using the device -- think reference counting for I/O requirements.

With this added layer, we could later think about monitoring subsystems, subsystem usage statistics, or accounting.

See discussion page about PolicyKit.

Events

  • signaling events via I/O (ringing, blinking, vibrating)
  • might use fd.o notification API

PIM

An intelligent storage database server. This is being carried out as a Google Summer of Code project. See complete description here

Context

  • Intelligent context API, integrating location as one -- among other -- sources

TBD Reference Geoclue

Telephony

  • Voice
  • Data

Preferences

  • settings database

Network

  • high level networking queries

Implementation

Completion Status

Low Level

  • device control: 50%
  • audio: 80%
  • GSM: 80%
  • Bluetooth: 80%
  • GPS: 80%
  • Network: 50%

High Level

  • Usage: 0%
  • Event: 0%
  • Preferences: 50%
  • Context: 0%
  • Telephony: 50%
  • Networking: 0%
  • PIM: 0%

The role of Python

Where we write new code, we will use Python to implement the dbus services. The reason for that being the rapid prototyping nature of Python and the emphasis on the Dbus APIs. Using Python, the turnaround times to experiment with APIs are incredibly faster than for using a compiled language such as C or C++.

Once the APIs have been used by application programmers, we can start profiling and possibly reimplement some of the services with daemons written in Vala, if necessary. We might as well succeed in improving performance by using Pyrex/Cython/Ctypes to keep the benefits of Python.

Team & Roadmap

Team

Subsystem Ownership

Phase 1 subsystems

  • odeviced (mickey)
  • ophoned (mickey)
  • ousaged (jan)
  • oeventd (jan)
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
  • ocontextd (guillaume)

Phase 2 subsystems

  • network (to be defined)
  • pim (to be defined)

Roadmap

The milestone releases are combined Openmoko Framework and Zhone releases. Remember: A feature that isn't visible, working, and tested in our framework testing application (Zhone) does not exist. Until Framework 1.0.0 (later this year), we will not use any versioning in components. Afterwards, individual components may see individual releases.

Note: If you have implemented a task, please edit this page and add a '[done]' behind. In the very unlikely event that you can't finish a task for a milestone, then add strike it through and add it to the next milestone. Don't leave it sitting untouched -- poor little feature does not deserve this!

P h a s e O n e


Milestone Release 1 (2008/06/15):

Features

  • Telephony I
    • Initiate outgoing call [done]
    • Accept incoming call [done]
    • Reject incoming call [done]
  • Zhone specific
    • Show operator name (or EMERGENCY ONLY) and signal strength [done]
    • Show battery status [done, with known hardware limitations on 01]
    • Dim screen when idle [done]
    • Suspend/Resume on Power Button [done, not fully tested]

Tasks

  • odeviced (mickey)
    • power control for GSM
    • LED control [done]
    • idle control [done]
  • ophoned (mickey)
    • sim pin handling [done]
    • network registration handling [done]
    • call handling [done]
  • ousaged (jan)
    • allocate / deallocate resources [done]
  • oeventd (jan)
    • change audio scenario [done]
    • ring [done]
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
    • research and discuss required API [done]
    • evaluate gconf-dbus API
    • since gnome people just start to deprecate gconf, check whether there is anything better for us to reuse
  • ocontextd (guillaume)
    • research and discuss what we need for profile/context API
    • evaluate possible libraries for reuse

Milestone Release 2 (2008/07/07):

Features

  • Telephony II
    • Hold call
    • Accept incoming call while another call being held
    • Accept incoming call to conference
    • Switch between active calls
    • Reject incoming call while another call being held
    • Drop held call
    • Drop all calls
    • Drop one call while being in conversation
  • Phonebook
    • Entry handling (add, remove, copy)
    • Offer storing entry after call ends
    • Select entry to call
  • Notification
    • Light Power:Orange LED when charging
    • Light Power:Blue LED when fully charged


Tasks

  • ophoned (mickey)
    • advanced call handling
    • SIM phonebook handling
  • oeventd (jan)
    • communicate with opreferencesd
    • notify according to preferences
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
    • read/write preferences
    • watch for preference changes and signalize
  • ocontextd (guillaume)
    • gather basic context from location
    • signalize context changes

Milestone Release 3 (2008/08/01):

Features

  • SMS
    • Write and send
    • Show incoming SMS
    • Show when message is actually sent
  • Message Book
    • Handle entries (add, remove, copy)

Tasks

  • ophoned:
    • sms pdu mode handling
    • sms messagebook

Milestone Release 4 (2008/08/15):

Integration Features

  • ...
  • ...
  • ...

Tasks

  • ... to be defined ...

Milestone Release 5 (2008/09/01):

Features

  • Calender
  • Alarm Clock

Tasks

  • ... to be defined ...

Evaluation and Hackathon in Taipei -- Milestone Release 6 (2008/10/15):

Participants

  • Hopefully all the framework guys.

Evaluation Criteria

  • ... to be defined ...

Features

  • ... to be defined ...

Tasks

  • ... to be defined ...

P h a s e T w o


Milestone Release 5 (2008/09/01):

  • ...

Milestone Release 6 (2008/09/15):

  • ...

Milestone Release 7 (2008/10/01):

  • ...
Personal tools
Introduction


Note: This is the (ongoing) description of the new framework architecture that is in development. See OpenmokoOldFramework for the framework architecture of 2007.1 and 2007.2 and NeoSoftwareStack for the current status (which has nothing to do yet with this framework)

Answering the TOP x questions

  • Question 1: Is this a part of the current images yet?
  • Answer: No.
  • Question 2: Is this the mystic ASU?
  • Answer: No.
  • Question 3: When can I see this as part of an image?
  • Answer: See roadmap at the bottom of this document. It's going to be an interesting autumn and winter '08 ;)
  • Question 4: What's the current status?
  • Answer: See right below:

Purposes

  • Give people the infrastructure to create solid and exciting software products based on the Openmoko platform
  • Support competing UIs while collaborating on developing services
  • Encourage framework users (e.g. application developers) to also contribute to the framework

Requirements

  • Make it simple
  • Concentrate on core services
  • Be programming language agnostic
  • Be UI toolkit agnostic
  • Try to reuse existing technologies as much as possible, but not at the cost of a bad API

How to achieve that technically

  • Chose Dbus as the collaboration line. Below dbus, we can work together. Above dbus, we can differentiate.
  • Expose features through dbus APIs implemented by UI-agnostic and language-agnostic services (daemons).
  • Optimize for Openmoko devices, but support multiple architectures and purposes through plugin interfaces and suitable hardware abstraction mechanisms.
  • Be not afraid of reinventing the wheel for a wheel-barrow if all the existing wheels are made for sports cars.

Mandatory Readings

What this is NOT about

This initiative does not cover low level services such as

  • Bootloader, Kernel, or System Init.

This initiative does not cover high level services such as

  • X-Window-System, Window Manager, UI Toolkits,
  • Application Launchers, Applications, or Fancy UIs.

Architectural Overview

frontside

Software Components

We differenciate between low-level and high-level services -- dbus will be used to communicate horizontally and vertically.

Low-Level Services

Device Control

The low level device control service manages peripheral control, i.e. controlling power for individual subsystems such as

  • GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, as well as
  • Backlight brightness and power,
  • turning LEDs on and off, etc.

It also deals with

  • charging, suspend/resume,
  • accellerometers, and buttons.

Last but not least, it sends notifications about the user's activity so that listeners have a chance to

  • change to powersaving modes, or
  • lock the device.

We implement the following software for that:

Audio

The low level audio service relies on a working alsa device driver. On top of that, there are two components:

  1. gstreamer
  2. pulseaudio

Gstreamer is to be used for all kinds of event sounds where a) multiple audio formats need to be supported and b) a latency of about one second is acceptable. This goes for e.g. ring tones, welcome tones, plug indication.

Pulseaudio is to be used for event sounds, where low-latency is necessary, e.g. touch click sounds and UI event acknowledge sounds. Pulseaudio is our general all-purpose mixer. Gstreamer will use the pulseaudio sink to feed audio through.

GSM

The low level GSM services expect a modem complying to GSM 07.07, GSM 07.05, and assorted GSM specifications, talking an AT-protocol over a serial line. If GSM 07.10 is supported, we use the multiplexing daemon

to export virtual serial lines over -- again -- AT-protocol can be spoken.

Bluetooth

The low level Bluetooth services rely on the official Linux Bluetooth subsystem:

GPS

The low level GPS services assume a GPS device that talks NMEA over a device node. We rely on the following software:

Network

The low level networking service assumes network interfaces, such as USB, Ethernet, Wifi, etc. We rely on the following software here:

  • Network Manager or Intel Connection Manager (undecided yet)
  • ppp

High Level

Usage

The Usage subsystem is coordinating application I/O requirements preventing. Applications are not supposed to turn on or off devices, since they do not have any knowledge about concurrent applications that may be also using the device -- think reference counting for I/O requirements.

With this added layer, we could later think about monitoring subsystems, subsystem usage statistics, or accounting.

See discussion page about PolicyKit.

Events

  • signaling events via I/O (ringing, blinking, vibrating)
  • might use fd.o notification API

PIM

An intelligent storage database server. This is being carried out as a Google Summer of Code project. See complete description here

Context

  • Intelligent context API, integrating location as one -- among other -- sources

TBD Reference Geoclue

Telephony

  • Voice
  • Data

Preferences

  • settings database

Network

  • high level networking queries

Implementation

Completion Status

Low Level

  • device control: 50%
  • audio: 80%
  • GSM: 80%
  • Bluetooth: 80%
  • GPS: 80%
  • Network: 50%

High Level

  • Usage: 0%
  • Event: 0%
  • Preferences: 50%
  • Context: 0%
  • Telephony: 50%
  • Networking: 0%
  • PIM: 0%

The role of Python

Where we write new code, we will use Python to implement the dbus services. The reason for that being the rapid prototyping nature of Python and the emphasis on the Dbus APIs. Using Python, the turnaround times to experiment with APIs are incredibly faster than for using a compiled language such as C or C++.

Once the APIs have been used by application programmers, we can start profiling and possibly reimplement some of the services with daemons written in Vala, if necessary. We might as well succeed in improving performance by using Pyrex/Cython/Ctypes to keep the benefits of Python.

Team & Roadmap

Team

Subsystem Ownership

Phase 1 subsystems

  • odeviced (mickey)
  • ophoned (mickey)
  • ousaged (jan)
  • oeventd (jan)
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
  • ocontextd (guillaume)

Phase 2 subsystems

  • network (to be defined)
  • pim (to be defined)

Roadmap

The milestone releases are combined Openmoko Framework and Zhone releases. Remember: A feature that isn't visible, working, and tested in our framework testing application (Zhone) does not exist. Until Framework 1.0.0 (later this year), we will not use any versioning in components. Afterwards, individual components may see individual releases.

Note: If you have implemented a task, please edit this page and add a '[done]' behind. In the very unlikely event that you can't finish a task for a milestone, then add strike it through and add it to the next milestone. Don't leave it sitting untouched -- poor little feature does not deserve this!

P h a s e O n e


Milestone Release 1 (2008/06/15):

Features

  • Telephony I
    • Initiate outgoing call [done]
    • Accept incoming call [done]
    • Reject incoming call [done]
  • Zhone specific
    • Show operator name (or EMERGENCY ONLY) and signal strength [done]
    • Show battery status [done, with known hardware limitations on 01]
    • Dim screen when idle [done]
    • Suspend/Resume on Power Button [done, not fully tested]

Tasks

  • odeviced (mickey)
    • power control for GSM
    • LED control [done]
    • idle control [done]
  • ophoned (mickey)
    • sim pin handling [done]
    • network registration handling [done]
    • call handling [done]
  • ousaged (jan)
    • allocate / deallocate resources [done]
  • oeventd (jan)
    • change audio scenario [done]
    • ring [done]
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
    • research and discuss required API [done]
    • evaluate gconf-dbus API
    • since gnome people just start to deprecate gconf, check whether there is anything better for us to reuse
  • ocontextd (guillaume)
    • research and discuss what we need for profile/context API
    • evaluate possible libraries for reuse

Milestone Release 2 (2008/07/07):

Features

  • Telephony II
    • Hold call
    • Accept incoming call while another call being held
    • Accept incoming call to conference
    • Switch between active calls
    • Reject incoming call while another call being held
    • Drop held call
    • Drop all calls
    • Drop one call while being in conversation
  • Phonebook
    • Entry handling (add, remove, copy)
    • Offer storing entry after call ends
    • Select entry to call
  • Notification
    • Light Power:Orange LED when charging
    • Light Power:Blue LED when fully charged


Tasks

  • ophoned (mickey)
    • advanced call handling
    • SIM phonebook handling
  • oeventd (jan)
    • communicate with opreferencesd
    • notify according to preferences
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
    • read/write preferences
    • watch for preference changes and signalize
  • ocontextd (guillaume)
    • gather basic context from location
    • signalize context changes

Milestone Release 3 (2008/08/01):

Features

  • SMS
    • Write and send
    • Show incoming SMS
    • Show when message is actually sent
  • Message Book
    • Handle entries (add, remove, copy)

Tasks

  • ophoned:
    • sms pdu mode handling
    • sms messagebook

Milestone Release 4 (2008/08/15):

Integration Features

  • ...
  • ...
  • ...

Tasks

  • ... to be defined ...

Milestone Release 5 (2008/09/01):

Features

  • Calender
  • Alarm Clock

Tasks

  • ... to be defined ...

Evaluation and Hackathon in Taipei -- Milestone Release 6 (2008/10/15):

Participants

  • Hopefully all the framework guys.

Evaluation Criteria

  • ... to be defined ...

Features

  • ... to be defined ...

Tasks

  • ... to be defined ...

P h a s e T w o


Milestone Release 5 (2008/09/01):

  • ...

Milestone Release 6 (2008/09/15):

  • ...

Milestone Release 7 (2008/10/01):

  • ...