http://www.golem.de/news/open-source-jahresrueckblick-2015-freie-software-macht-vieles-besser-aber-nicht-alles-1512-118090.html Published: 12/28/2015 12:01
For the benefit of developers and customers have former this year Open-source opponents like Microsoft or Apple strongly set on open source code. Some of the open mobile operating systems stumble against it, and even Android manufacturers complain problems in the development.
Businesses who strictly rejected a few years ago open source software, or avoided, in 2015 have the idea of free availability of the source code in the sense their developer communities and customers significantly expanded. That the use of open source code, however, is not a guaranteed success, shows the mobile sector, where some alternative operating systems had problems in 2015 or from its niche existence simply did not come out.
As proved advantageous, however, the already announced the end of 2014. Disclosure of the .NET Framework by Microsoft. Had the former company CEO Steve Ballmer Open Source still referred to a little more than ten years as a cancer, today seem to have no more fear of contact both the team and the current chief Satya Nadella.
At the beginning of 2015 many already open project such as the compiler Roslyn Moved to GitHub, and .Net has been opened continuously during the year, such as by providing the runtime environment of .Net. Many of these techniques has integrated into this year’s release of Visual Studio 2015, such as the JIT compiler Ryujit or the in-house build tool MS Build Microsoft. The presented until the spring Editor Visual Studio code is also freely available since November.
In the course of this development, and external .NET developers have decided to disclose their applications. It should be emphasized especially the speech synthesis software that Intel has developed for Stephen Hawking. They can now be used as in other diseases of the motor nervous system expanded by other and.
Windows server with Unix concepts
The fact that Microsoft’s corporate philosophy has clearly changed, also shows the announced in the summer schedule, SSH for Windows and PowerShell provide for and cooperate with OpenSSH. After two failed attempts the appropriate team was able to convince the management this year of working on it. Microsoft is sponsoring for the OpenBSD Foundation and the first code of the art is also now available.
In addition, the developers of Microsoft working on the implementation of other techniques for Windows, which are originally developed for UNIX-like systems or be used there for a long time. So to support the Windows Server container and Docker. With the so-called Nano servers, there is also a version of Windows Server, which is reduced to the bare minimum to run a single application, which was always been no problem with Linux servers.
Apple prides itself on open source
Unlike Microsoft, which was described years ago still one of the largest open source opponents, Apple had always an ambivalent relationship to open source software. So although the company maintains with its Unix-based, Webkit or contributing to LLVM comparatively much open software, is there otherwise but rather closed, which is especially true for iOS.
therefore has
All the more surprising announcement to provide the programming Swift freely available. Swift to replace Objective-C as a language for applications on Apple systems in the long term. When disclosing Swift early December, the open source community Apples discovered something excessive pride in his efforts.
On a web page, Apple praised itself as the first company in the “open source play a key role in the software strategy” Games. Due to the sometimes harsh criticism on this statement Apple eventually changed the text and wrote instead that open source software continues to be the “Heart” the platforms of Apple.
Open Source for Video, Games and Graphics
In addition to opening its own techniques to meet customer needs and to bind even more developers to their own company, However, open source software has the potential to provide for cross-sectoral co-operation and to be the community concept justice. The fact that companies benefiting all can work on a common goal, showing, for example at the Alliance for Open Media (Aomedia).
The consortium Aomedia founded this year combines the streaming provider Amazon and Netflix with Microsoft and Intel, as well as Mozilla, Google and Cisco. The latter develop novel video codecs with Daala, VP10 and Thor. They should offer a license-free open-source alternative to common formats, especially HEVC H.265 alias. The companies have joined forces in the Aomedia to unify these works and so continue to provide a general video standard available, which could possibly reach the same meaning as the audio codec Opus.
In addition to the commitment to the values of open source software and a standardization finds that companies with the merger probably also financial interests. Thus, the license fees for the currently widespread H.264 are indeed considered too high, but they are nevertheless capped. For H.265 it is expected that the costs for use continue to rise, especially since the same two competing consortia around the licensing of video codecs.
Steam Machines finally available
A similar motivation, namely to be independent from other companies and be able to set the agenda themselves, is Valve probably two years ago have prompted with steamos to develop its own operating system, which is designed primarily for games. With the corresponding computers, the so-called Steam Machines, therefore a competition could arise to classic consoles.
Since November, the first Steam Machines commercially and yet is not their success in sight. In our test device of Zotac could not really convince. This also applies to the created by Valve Gamepad, the Steam Controller. He demands quite a bit of getting used to. Moreover, the controller without Steam on a Linux system is difficult to use because the necessary driver support is still lacking. But this could change in the coming year.
Free video drivers from the manufacturer
Two longer prepared open source projects that can show the first significant results this year, are free graphics drivers for the Raspberry Pi and the completely new Linux driver Amdgpu for current models of AMD’s Radeon cards. The driver for Raspberry Pi arises since summer of 2014 commissioned by chipmaker Broadcom and is integrated into Linux 4.4, which is already available as a preview release and probably appears stable shortly after the turn of the year.
A little less time to develop an initial version needed the programmers for the announced in autumn 2014 driver Amdgpu. This will in future provide a basis for the freest possible flow graphics stack on Linux for Radeon cards, but can also reuse a proprietary part of the Catalyst driver. Although these two drivers in the official Linux kernel are available, fully operational, they are not, there still lacks some features. These are likely to be implemented in the coming year.
problems and restarts in the mobile industry
The free licensing of the mobile operating system Android is widely regarded as a success concept, since many manufacturers are bringing so comparatively quickly devices on the market and can also carry out your own adjustments, to stand out from the competition. This year many Android developers, however, have noted critically that this approach can also lead to serious problems in part.
To set the Sony employees Tim Bird on LinuxCon Japan a survey before, seen from that many equipment manufacturers shy away from cooperation with the kernel community. This, in turn, that in some cases several million lines of code per device must be maintained by the company itself, which leads to an expensive overhead.
Much worse is to this situation, however, that a rapid response of manufacturers is thus very difficult to dangerous vulnerabilities as Stagefright. On the Linux Plumbers Conference, participants discussed possible solutions to this problem. Especially a lot but have not yet caused these discussions.
Fast Failed mobile system with Linux
Alternative mobile operating systems based on Linux this year were also not really relevant. Particularly hard hit by Mozilla Firefox OS. Thus, the work to bring the system on smartphones, was completely set. Mozilla has also announced plans to realign Firefox OS in the embedded area.
It is not yet completely set on developing Jolla Sailfish OS. But the future of the project is plentiful uncertain, as the company has acute financial difficulties. Probably for this reason the delivery of the Jolla tablets always had to be moved, and the unit still has not reached its buyers. The situation is so bad that the company even on Facebook called to his community, to help with the move to new offices for Jolla. Although financing Jolla is secured for the moment, however, this only applies to the licensing business.
Next potter or start over
Still unimpressed by such developments shows Canonical, which continues to work on Ubuntu Touch. After nearly two years with prototypes can now be at least buy smartphones preloaded with Ubuntu. However, the hardware facilities of the BQ Aquaris E4.5 could not convince it. Even the better hardware of Meizu MX4 showed some weaknesses in the system.
To the KDE community sales, many devices and Finance must however not really care and has therefore a variant of its plasma surface for smartphones created. The team pursues explicitly aims to create could be accepted by the Community system, which – as far as it goes up – open source and open to all for contributions. KDE This raises clear against the controlled company development models of other systems.
Whether the KDE developers will really have success with their smartphone project is probably already evident from the developments in the coming year. Likewise, the 2016 crucial for the survival of Jolla. Regardless of this rather uncertain future Android will continue to grow, and the producers will coordinate their work better. Also of significant open source trend at Microsoft likely to persist or even be strengthened even more. (sg)
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