Zeta | # 1 | 2015-11-23, 21:47 | Report

Hello,

In these difficult times, I have seen a call to help funding the mer infrastructure (https://twitter.com/locusf/status/668409070643257344).

At the same time, I have seen a comment on a blog, stating that developing mer is redondant with what Yocto provides (Linux, Wayland, Qt, ...), but with Yocto supported by the linux foundation and industrial companies.

* I never thought of it that way, but indeed, what is the difference between Mer and Yocto ?
* What does Mer provides that Yocto doesn't ?
* Is that only a schedule consequence that Yocto didn't exist or was not as supported as it is now, when Mer was chosen/started ?
* Isn't it too late to rebase Sailfish OS on top of Yocto ? The hardware adaptation layer would need a lot of work propably for the Jolla, but the upper stack (Nemo, Silica and other sailfish OS packages) shouldn't need that much changes than writing new bitbake recipes, isn't it ?
* Would switching to Yocto make it faster to port it to future hardware, as a lot are supported now ? Maybe not as good support on multimedia models like Mediatek then industrial platforms like iMx6 and SAMA5 ?


Feel free to explain with technical details, I uses Yocto a bit at work, and tried porting Sailfish to xt897 using the HADK, so I should be able to follow (even if not being able to do it by myself...).

Thanks !

romu | # 2 | 2015-11-24, 09:18 | Report

I just read a bit about Yocto and it doesn't seem to be in contradiction with Mer. As far as I understood, Yocto is project to provide an ecosystem which can help to create Linux distributions for the embedded world, not a distribution in itself. And Yocto targets embedded Linux, but not only mobile phones.

Mer is a distribution which targets mobile phones.

I would say with Yocto you can create Mer...which already exists. Didn't really see the added value in this particular case, but I didn't too long to read about Yocto.

billranton | # 3 | 2015-11-24, 09:39 | Report

I got the same thing from that, though Mer is not built with Yocto, and it could be a bit more flexible if it could be and perhaps save some cash. I couldn't tell if Yocto was for maintaining distributions or just creating them though.

hedayat | # 4 | 2015-11-24, 16:22 | Report

IIRC, Linux Foundation was backing MeeGo (Which Mer continues), and is already backing Tizen. So, it seems that even Linux Foundation doesn't consider Yacto and Tizen/MeeGo the same product.

wicket | # 5 | 2015-11-24, 17:43 | Report

I'm going to sound boring here as I've mentioned this many times before, but still, it's pertinent to this thread so I'll say it again.

One significant difference is that Mer uses outdated, unmaintained and possibly vulnerable GPLv2 packages to allow vendors to Tivoise their devices.

Yocto provides recent, maintained GPLv3 packages for those that care about security, but they also provide unmaintained GPLv2 packages for those vendors that prefer Tivoisation to security.

Zeta | # 6 | 2015-11-24, 21:39 | Report

It has been so for Meego (there was Nokia and Intel backing it), but doesn't seem to have follow with Mer. There is no mention of it in the projects of the foundations (where you can see Yocto and Tizen) :
http://collabprojects.linuxfoundatio...ative-projects

Zeta | # 7 | 2015-11-24, 22:05 | Report

Otherwise, no one know the differences that would make Mer more meaningful than Yocto for its use case, and thus worth funding ?

coderus | # 8 | 2015-11-25, 01:22 | Report

Stop posting ******** please

hedayat | # 9 | 2015-11-25, 07:01 | Report

Yes, it doesn't back Mer & I didn't mean it. I said that it backed Meego & is backing Tizen. & Mer is the continuation of Meego.

If Yacto is an alternative to Mer, it is probably an alternative to Tizen too (or at least Tizen can be based on it).

P.S. Actually, I has been thinking if bringing Nemo & hardware adaptation based on Fedora is viable! If I had enough time, I'd try to see how hard is it! IMHO, it'd be better if Nemo was built on top of an active distribution, so that contributors can focus on mobile specific things rather than the whole distribution. But I should admit that I don't know how much Mer is different from a regular distribution.

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Last edited by hedayat; 2015-11-25 at 07:09.

romu | # 10 | 2015-11-25, 08:00 | Report

Could you please give some arguments?

Here, first line of the Mer web site: