OpenmokoFramework

From Openmoko

Revision as of 04:57, 31 July 2008 by Brian H Wilson (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search


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

Q/A

  • Question: Is this an Openmoko-only thing?
  • Answer: No. It's going to be available for all kinds of mobile hardware running Linux, i.e. OpenEZX, XanaduX, HTC/iPAQ, ...
  • Question: Is this a part of the current images yet? Is it perhaps the mystic ASU?
  • Answer: No.
  • Question: When can I see this as part of an image?
  • Answer: Not before winter '08.
  • Question: What's the current status?
  • Answer: See right below or hop over to http://trac.freesmartphone.org
  • Question: How do I work the Zhone (FSO demo app) UI?
  • Answer: FSO UI Tutorial

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

  • Choose 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

Phone

The phone subsystem can be used to create and manage voices communications. It makes abstraction of the protocol used.

Preferences

  • settings database

Network

  • high level networking queries

Implementation

Completion Status

Low Level

  • device control: 50%
  • audio: 80%
  • GSM: 90%
  • GPRS: 90%
  • Bluetooth: 80%
  • GPS: 80%
  • Network: 50%

High Level

  • Usage: 30%
  • Event: 30%
  • Preferences: 50%
  • Context: 0%
  • Telephony: 80%
  • Networking: 0%
  • PIM: 0%

Tools

  • mdbus -- a dbus introspection and interaction utility,
  • cli-framework -- a python dbus command line interface.
  • mickeyterm -- a MUXer-aware minimal terminal emulator.

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)
  • ogsmd (mickey)
  • ousaged (jan)
  • oeventd (jan)
  • ophoned (guillaume)
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
  • ocontextd (guillaume)
  • ogpsd (daniel)

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: The milestones and tasks moved over to our issue tracker.

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)


Q/A

  • Question: Is this an Openmoko-only thing?
  • Answer: No. It's going to be available for all kinds of mobile hardware running Linux, i.e. OpenEZX, XanaduX, HTC/iPAQ, ...
  • Question: Is this a part of the current images yet? Is it perhaps the mystic ASU?
  • Answer: No.
  • Question: When can I see this as part of an image?
  • Answer: Not before winter '08.
  • Question: What's the current status?
  • Answer: See right below or hop over to http://trac.freesmartphone.org
  • Question: How do I work the Zhone (FSO demo app) UI?
  • Answer: FSO UI Tutorial

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

  • Choose 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

Phone

The phone subsystem can be used to create and manage voices communications. It makes abstraction of the protocol used.

Preferences

  • settings database

Network

  • high level networking queries

Implementation

Completion Status

Low Level

  • device control: 50%
  • audio: 80%
  • GSM: 90%
  • GPRS: 90%
  • Bluetooth: 80%
  • GPS: 80%
  • Network: 50%

High Level

  • Usage: 30%
  • Event: 30%
  • Preferences: 50%
  • Context: 0%
  • Telephony: 80%
  • Networking: 0%
  • PIM: 0%

Tools

  • mdbus -- a dbus introspection and interaction utility,
  • cli-framework -- a python dbus command line interface.
  • mickeyterm -- a MUXer-aware minimal terminal emulator.

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)
  • ogsmd (mickey)
  • ousaged (jan)
  • oeventd (jan)
  • ophoned (guillaume)
  • opreferencesd (guillaume)
  • ocontextd (guillaume)
  • ogpsd (daniel)

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: The milestones and tasks moved over to our issue tracker.