MeeGo Smart TV Working Group begins its work to bring open framework and innovation to television ecosystem

LONDON {IPTV World Forum}, March 22, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the formation of the MeeGo™ Smart TV Working Group.

MeeGo is an open source Linux project targeting multiple segments including automotive systems, netbooks, tablets, TV’s, and set-top boxes, among others, and uses Qt to enable cross-device applications. The Working Group is designed to help drive the evolution of MeeGo within the television ecosystem and provide an open framework for industry creativity and innovation.

Early Working Group participants include some of the most innovative thinkers in the Smart TV industry and represent leading service providers, system integrators, hardware platform manufacturers and solution providers that include: Amino Communications, Intel Corporation, JetHead Development, Locatel, MIPS Technologies, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Sigma Designs, Telecom Italia, Videon Central, and Ysten, among others.

Working Group members will define software components and a compliance program as well as focus on building an innovative and thriving ecosystem of developers and content providers with leading capabilities and tools.

“The Smart TV segment is growing fast, and with it comes both opportunity and complexity,” said Ibrahim Haddad, Director of Technical Alliances at The Linux Foundation. “MeeGo is built from the ground up to address next-generation computing in multiple market segments like Smart TV and is intended to help advance Linux in this burgeoning market in the year ahead.”

Smart TV allows consumers to access new entertainment choices with virtually unlimited content from the Internet and TV programming, a new world of TV applications and a browser to search and discover content. The transition to Smart TV will introduce dramatic changes to the television industry and will provide new programming, application and services opportunities to the entire ecosystem of service providers, content creators and distributors as well as to hardware and software developers. MeeGo Smart TV specifications are designed to provide an open framework to enable this community to drive these innovations to consumers.

The MeeGo Smart TV Working Group will begin defining software components providing platform standardization, while giving developers the ability to focus on competitive differentiation within the TV market segment with tools such at Qt. Members of the Working Group will submit code, which upon acceptance will be made available to the industry via MeeGo.com on a twice a year release cadence (Q1 and Q3). The first MeeGo Smart TV Working Group meeting will be held in April 2011. For more information, please visit http://www.meego.com.

Participating Companies Voice Support
Amino Communications
“We are delighted to be a founding member of the MeeGo Smart TV Working Group and look forward to sharing the experience of developing the technology that has underpinned the world’s first deployments of smart TV-based services by a tier one operator,” said Amino Communications Chief Executive Officer Andrew Burke. “MeeGo has proved to be a key element in enabling the rapid development and delivery of Smart TV related products that are perfectly aligned with today’s fast-changing marketplace.”

Intel Corporation
“Intel is working with leading OEMs and service providers to revolutionize the TV industry,” said Keith Wehmeyer, general manager, IPTV Segment, Intel Digital Home Group, “MeeGo Smart TV will play a crucial role by providing a robust framework for new devices and services, and we’re looking forward to helping provide high-performance processors needed for media-rich applications and user interfaces, as well as for cross-device integration.”

JetHead Development
“MeeGo brings a powerful and diverse set of features to the Smart TV market,” said Ben Payne, JetHead Development. “We are working with operators all over the world that are looking for a major step forward in what their middleware and applications can deliver. We believe that MeeGo Smart TV is well positioned to answer their needs.”

Locatel
“Locatel has always been providing leading edge interactive TV solutions to the Hospitality market,” said Antoine Trannoy, CTO, Locatel. “We are happy to contribute to the MeeGo Smart TV Working Group. We indeed strongly believe that it will shorten development cycles and allow us to bring more value to our customers.”

MIPS Technologies
“Smart TVs and other connected products are fundamentally changing the consumer entertainment experience. As the leading provider of processor IP for the digital home, MIPS Technologies is looking forward to contributing to the MeeGo Smart TV Working Group to provide our customers with an appealing option for development of connected consumer entertainment products,” said Art Swift, vice president of marketing and business development, MIPS Technologies.

Nokia
“Qt is a leading application and UI framework for a wide range of platforms, including smart set-top-boxes and TVs,” said Dilip Kenchammana, head of Products, Home Media Segment, Nokia Qt Development Frameworks. “The MeeGo TV community project will deliver a world-class open-source Smart TV software platform, enabling developers, manufacturers and operators to create a differentiated, engaging end user experience that builds on the cross-platform power of Qt.”

Nokia Siemens Networks
“Nokia Siemens Networks strongly supports a much more open environment within the IPTV industry and believes that real innovation is driven through open communities contributing to the market, enabling future proof solutions,” said Brook Longdon, Head of Media and Entertainment, Nokia Siemens Networks. “The MeeGo project is the kind of platform that will help us innovate in this space as we press into the future.”

Sigma Designs
“By working closely with partners, customers and others throughout the industry, we are able to provide robust solutions for the connected home,” said Vikram Shrivastava of Sigma Designs. “We believe the MeeGo Smart TV Working Group will help lead the way in providing important innovations across platforms as content is distributed more broadly. Our deep culture of expertise will allow us to play a significant role in helping the evolution in content delivery continue.”

Videon Central
“Videon is looking forward to collaborating on MeeGo Smart TV. By creating an open TV and set-top box framework, the MeeGo Smart TV Working Group will enable the rapid creation of next generation Smart TV solutions by easing the development and integration of multiple applications into a single platform environment,” said Jim Condon, CTO, Videon Central, Inc.

Ysten
“Smart television with enhanced services is rapidly developing in the PRC,” said Limin Hou, general manager, Ysten Technology. “MeeGo provides a well-defined ecosystem with the necessary flexibility for customization and extension for China.”

About the MeeGo Project
The MeeGo project is an open source software platform for the next generation of computing devices. The MeeGo software platform is designed to give developers the broadest range of device segments to target for their applications, including netbooks and entry-level desktops, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected TVs, media phones and more – all using a uniform set of APIs based on Qt. For consumers, MeeGo will offer innovative application experiences that they can take from device to device. The MeeGo project is hosted by the Linux Foundation. For more information on MeeGo, visit www.meego.com.

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Moblin is a trademark of Intel.

Russian-based systems integrator to work on open compliance program, among other Linux and open source initiatives

SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that PingWin Software is its newest member.

PingWin Software is a leading systems integrator in Russia and is focused on Linux and open source software integration. PingWin Software is the first Russian company to join The Linux Foundation.

The company is joining The Linux Foundation to more closely collaborate with the worldwide Linux community on technical issues and business strategies. It is beginning this work with participation in the Open Compliance Program (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/compliance), which includes a set of open source tools, training curricula and a new self-administered assessment checklist that allows companies to ensure compliance.

“Our Linux Foundation membership will give us an insider’s view of the latest Linux and open source trends, as well as give us the opportunity to collaborate with leaders from throughout the Linux ecosystem,” said Dmitry Komissarov, CEO of PingWin Software. “Our work on the Open Compliance Program and other activities will provide us with important knowledge to inform our business and our customers.”

“PingWin Software is an important addition to The Linux Foundation. Its international perspective is an important one as we continue to mature our Open Compliance Program,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs, The Linux Foundation.

PingWin Software’s home country is one of many around the world that are transitioning to Linux and open source software for government IT. In December, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that the government would migrate from its proprietary operating system to a Linux-based operating system by 2015.

About PingWin Software
PingWin Software Ltd. was founded in 2009. This is the full cycle IT company that provide services based on the FOSS (free/libre/open source software): consulting, development, migration, upgrade and support. The mission of the company is to increase the effectiveness level of Russian commercial and government organizations by implementing in their informational systems the best FOSS solutions. PingWin Software is an active member of the Russian Association of Free Software (RASPO). More information about PingWin Software at: www.pingwinsoft.ru

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Global consumer electronics leader joins at Gold level to help inform the direction of embedded Linux and open compliance initiatives

SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Panasonic is joining the organization as a Gold member.

The Linux Foundation merged late last year with the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), of which Panasonic was a founder. CELF members were grandfathered into The Linux Foundation at the Silver level. With work on embedded Linux and open compliance accelerating, Panasonic chose to increase its level of work and commitment to The Linux Foundation at the Gold level of membership.

Gold membership is the second-highest corporate membership tier at The Linux Foundation. China Mobile was the last member to join at the Gold level just last November.

“For more than 90 years, we’ve been committed to pushing the limits of innovation in consumer electronics,” said Kazuo Kajimoto, Director, System Engineering Center, Panasonic. “The rise of Linux in our market gives us new opportunities to push those limits. By joining The Linux Foundation, we will be able to work directly with the people and companies who can help us maximize this technology for next-generation devices and technologies.”

Panasonic will participate in embedded Linux initiatives, such as the Consumer Electronics (CE) Workgroup (the successor of CE Linux Forum) and the Yocto Project, and will attend the Embedded Linux Conference in April. It will also participate in the Open Compliance Program, as well as collaborate with other companies at the Linux Foundation Legal Summit(s).

“Panasonic’s increasing commitment to Linux is certainly another representation of how important the Linux operating system has become in the consumer electronics market,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Panasonic will provide importance perspectives on how embedded Linux and compliance work should mature in the months and years ahead.”

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Summit brings together leadership from throughout the Linux community, offers keynote highlights from Google, Qualcomm Innovation Center, Yahoo! and more, and kicks off 20th Anniversary of Linux celebrations

SAN FRANCISCO, March 8, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced exclusive keynotes and the full program for its Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. The Summit takes place April 6-8, 2011 at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.

The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is the only event where a cross-section of leaders from the Linux developer, industry and end user communities meet face-to-face to tackle today’s most pressing issues facing Linux, including technical development, legal topics, ISV porting and end user requirements.

The Summit is an invitation-only event that caters to Linux Foundation members and workgroup contributors. It is designed to accelerate collaboration and problem solving by bringing key stakeholders together in a neutral setting.

Keynotes Highlight Growth Areas for Linux, Success Stories
This year’s Collaboration Summit mirrors the changing landscape of Linux with keynotes and panels on the rising use of the Operating System (OS) in mobile and embedded products, as well as the continued success of Linux in the enterprise and cloud computing. Google will present a keynote on the changing technical needs of cloud providers and Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC) will discuss how mobile success is driving innovation for Linux.

Highlights from Day One of the Collaboration Summit include a welcome keynote from Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, followed by:

• Keynotes from Google’s Michael Rubin, who will discuss filesystems in the cloud, and Qualcomm’s Mark Charlebois, who will talk about how mobile demand is driving innovations in Linux.

• A “Yocto Project” panel of experts that will discuss how collaboration in the embedded Linux community can increase software consistencies and ease development. Panelists from Texas Instruments and Wind River will join ex-Apple executive and industry luminary Steve Sakoman for this discussion moderated by The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin.

• The exclusive Linux Kernel Panel includes: James Bottomley, Linux SCSI subsystem maintainer and Distinguished Engineer at Novell; Jon Corbet, Kernel Developer and Editor at Linux Weekly News (LWN); Thomas Gleixner, Linux kernel developer; and Andrew Morton, co-maintainer of the Ext3 filesystem and the journalling layer for block devices.

• Linux Kernel Developer Greg Kroah-Hartman will moderate a panel that will share select Linux’ Hardware Success Stories. Panelists from Intel, QuIC and Texas Instruments will participate.

• “What’s Next for Linux in the Enterprise and the Cloud,” will address the latest advancements in Linux and cloud computing. Panelists from AMD, DeviceVM/Splashtop and Yahoo! will participate in this discussion led by The Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin.

During days two and three of the event, attendee will split into workgroup meetings to address topics such as OpenPrinting, MeeGo, Linux Standard Base (LSB), Open Compliance, Yocto, Tracing, and more.

In parallel with the Collaboration Summit program, the following Linux training courses will be available onsite at Hotel Kabuki: Linux Performance Tuning, Advanced Linux Performance Tuning and Embedded Linux Development: A Crash Course. These courses are prepared by well-known Linux developers and provide a unique opportunity for colleagues to train together while attending the conference.

To review the complete Summit schedule, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/schedule. To request an invitation, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/request-an-invitation.

20th Anniversary of Linux Celebrations to Kick Off at the Summit
The Linux community this year will come together to celebrate 20 years of Linux. In August of 1991, Linux creator Linus Torvalds posted what today is an infamous message to share with the world that he was building a new operating system. The Linux Foundation will kick off the year’s 20th anniversary celebrations at the Collaboration Summit and attendees will learn what else is in store as the months leading up to the official celebration (August 2011) unfold.

“The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit continues to be one of our most important events of the year. It’s a unique opportunity for Linux stakeholders from all areas of the ecosystem to learn, share and collaborate face-to-face,” says Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “The Summit will showcase how Linux is maturing while kicking off an important year for the OS that will include 20th anniversary celebrations where people from throughout the community can participate online or at our events in a variety of different ways.”

The Linux Foundation invites everyone to participate in this important milestone. There will be a variety of ways to get involved, including an opportunity to record a personal message to the rest of the community about Linux’ past, present and future in the “20th Anniversary Video Booth” onsite.

The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit is made possible with generous support from Platinum sponsors IBM, Intel and QuIC; Gold sponsors Qt Development Frameworks and Texas Instruments; Silver sponsors AMD and Google; and Bronze sponsor Softlayer, with additional support from MeeGo and Sonic.net.

The Embedded Linux Conference and Android™ Builders Summit both take place the week following The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit. More information on these conferences can be found at The Linux Foundation Events website: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events.

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon, and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. Use of this trademark is subject to Google Permissions.

Project gains momentum as the OpenEmbedded Community and an increasing number of companies collaborate to build Linux for variety of chip architectures

SAN FRANCISCO, March 2, 2011 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that the Yocto Project will align with the OpenEmbedded community to advance embedded Linux. The Linux Foundation today is also announcing a variety of new companies that are participating in these embedded Linux efforts.

The Yocto Project is merging technology with the OpenEmbedded community and extending governance to include OpenEmbedded representatives. In addition, the projects are planning to share a common OpenEmbedded Core consisting of software build recipes and core Linux components, preventing fragmentation and reinforcing the OpenEmbedded methodology as an open standard for embedded Linux build systems.

The Yocto Project is a Linux Foundation workgroup announced late last year to help develop open source, high-quality technology that helps companies make custom Linux-based systems for embedded products, regardless of hardware architecture. The OpenEmbedded community, founded in 2003, is focused on building a common build framework for embedded Linux.

“The Yocto Project and the OpenEmbedded community bring together the industry’s key stakeholders from the embedded Linux community to build a core set of technologies to advance Linux for the burgeoning systems and devices market,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “This kind of massive collaboration is exactly what makes Linux the driving force behind today’s new technology innovations.”

An annual survey of embedded developers conducted by Embedded Market Forecasters reported in 2010 that the two primary factors that contribute to choosing an embedded Operating System (OS) are cost (44.6%) and availability of source code (33.1%). These drivers are contributing to the explosion in demand for Linux. But until now, deep customization and hardware options were limited without a huge investment on development.

“The open source Yocto Project brings together the elements needed to make the embedded Linux development process easier,” said Philip Balister, Vice Chairman, OpenEmbedded Board. “We’re happy to be working with the Yocto Project and believe it can advance Linux development efforts for embedded systems and devices.”

“Linux is huge in the embedded market because it can be adapted for any application, but it isn’t always easy to get started with a custom design,” says Grant Likely, Linux kernel developer, Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB) member, and president, Secret Lab Technologies Ltd. “I’m thrilled that OpenEmbedded and the Yocto members are working together to make building custom Linux systems simple and reliable.”

“Linux is paving the way for the future of computing and embedded computing is at the very core of that future,” said Steve Sakoman. “The Linux Foundation and its members are accelerating this future by bringing open source communities together on a common set of goals. The alignment of Yocto and OpenEmbedded is one big step towards that future.”

New Companies Pledge Support for Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded
The Linux Foundation, the OpenEmbedded community and participating companies in the Yocto Project recognize that collaborating can bring together a variety of upstream sources to ease embedded Linux development. Companies contributing to the project today now include Cavium Networks, Dell, Freescale Semiconductor, Intel, LSI, Mentor Graphics, Mindspeed, MontaVista Software, NetLogic Microsystems, RidgeRun, Texas Instruments, Tilera, Timesys, and Wind River, among others.

Supporting comments from these companies can be read here.

The Yocto and OpenEmbedded community will be meeting at The Linux Foundation’s Collaboration Summit and Embedded Linux Conference in April. For more information on these events, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org. Embedded Linux training opportunities will also be available at these events: http://training.linuxfoundation.org. For more information about the Yocto Project, please visit http:/www.yoctoproject.org.

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the organization sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and promotes, protects and advances the Linux operating system by marshaling the resources of its members and the open source development community. The Linux Foundation provides a neutral forum for collaboration and education by hosting Linux conferences, including LinuxCon and generating original Linux research and content that advances the understanding of the Linux platform. Its web properties, including Linux.com, reach approximately two million people per month. The organization also provides extensive Linux training opportunities that feature the Linux kernel community’s leading experts as instructors. Follow The Linux Foundation on Twitter.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, Linux Standard Base, MeeGo and Yocto Project are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.