2004-06-27 14:45:59

by KeiHachi

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [Bluez-devel] Questions about BlueZ in commercial use

Thanks for your reply, nicholas.

> On 0, KeiHachi <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I have some questions about BlueZ.
> >
> > Our company is investigating now about BlueZ,
> > to determine whether it is useful to use in our commercial product, or not.
>
> If this is the first GPL software you are using, please read and
> understand the implications of this license. This is no offense, but i
> think some DVD and Router manufacturer didn't do this before integrating
> linux code in their products.

Thanks.
I know the topic of GPL in Linux world of course,
so we have already studied about the license issues,
and will continue to study more & more about it from now.


> > Q1. development schedule in the future
> > I saw "http://www.bluez.org/todo.html"
> > But there is no information I want to know.
> > Please tell me the following things.
> >
> > - eSCO (enhanced SCO) in Bluetooth 1.2
> > Do you have any plan to develop these?
>
> I am not Marcel and not writing any kernel code, but i listened his talk
> at Linuxtag Karlsruhe. I think the problem is the lack of the end-user
> products already supporting this. But it is on his plan:
>
> http://www.holtmann.org/papers/bluetooth/lt2004_slides.pdf

Thanks.
I think he will need to spend a little extra time (maybe a few months) for supporting eSCO.


> > - Audio/Video related profiles
> > Do you have any plan to develop these(A2DP, AVRCP)?
>
> He posted some time ago a request, that if people supply him such
> hardware he would implent those support.

Do you mean that offering a headphone with Bluetooth audio functionality to him
is necessary to develop A2DP?

And, if you remember about that thread,
please tell me the thread information (posted time or title or keywords, etc).


> > Q2. maintenance/support
> > I found some examples about the support of open-source that
> > companies which want to use such a open-source software,
> > pay some maintenance fee to the community or some companies which
> > provide the service to maintain it, so that
> > the community or such companies ensure the quality of their software is a certain level.
> > For example, MySQL, JBoss, etc.
> > These open-sources are maintained to ensure the quality,
> > by some kind of organizations which get the maintenance fee.
> >
> > Does BlueZ allow such a business model?
>
> I don't understand, are you looking for a company that provides such
> support or you want to start a business providing such support?
> I don't know of the first, but contacting the developer directly, one
> may provide such support. The second is of course possible.

I supposed the first one you mentioned. The latter one is out of my supposition.

If you have a few guesses about such a company that provides the support of using BlueZ,
please tell me the name of such a company.

Or, please forgive me for asking this rude question, but,
could the developers of BlueZ community provide the support to ensure the quality,
as counter value for some maintenance fee?

> > Q3. version control
> > Many open-sources are composed of two versions,
> > one is a "testing version", and another is a "stable version".
> > But I think BlueZ has only a "testing version".
> >
> > Why doesn't BlueZ have a "stable version"?
> > Do you have any plan to have a "stable version" of BlueZ?
>
> It is so stable, you don't need one, ;) Just kidding. Why do you think,
> there is no stable version? I think the releases are considered stable
> and the CVS stuff and the utils2/libs2 are the testing branch.

For example, Affix provides us these two versions software,
the testing version and the stable version.
http://affix.sourceforge.net/#download

I suppose such version control or management like Affix.

If a new profile is testing or has been released immediately after the development,
probably some bugs are still included.
So we think if BlueZ is used for the commercial use, the stable version is necessary,
because a commercial product is required to be a high quality.

If I misundersood, I am sorry.
The utils2/libs2 are the testing version, the others are the stable version, you mean?
If so, is the modification of the kernel part still stable?


Thanks.
Keihachi




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2004-06-27 18:29:30

by Marcel Holtmann

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [Bluez-devel] Questions about BlueZ in commercial use

Hi Keihachi,

I think Nicholas answered most of your questions quite well, but I must
comment on this part.

> For example, Affix provides us these two versions software,
> the testing version and the stable version.
> http://affix.sourceforge.net/#download
>
> I suppose such version control or management like Affix.

What you really wan't doesn't exists in the real world. Most Open Source
projects differ between stable and unstable/testing trees, but how do
you define the difference between them? The general problem is that they
think their API is not sufficient and so they are going to redesign it
and use the next major version for it. We will do actually the same, but
as long as we don't break any backward compatible there is no need to do
this.

If you wanna choose a Bluetooth stack that has a clear stable and
testing version then go with the Affix and use it. I am not going to
provide such version control, because I doesn't work out for us. What I
can give is a clear statement about what protocols (or profiles) are
stable within the complete BlueZ stack. So you should know what you need
and I can give you a more detailed answer about it.

> If a new profile is testing or has been released immediately after the development,
> probably some bugs are still included.

I don't take this point for sure, because even software declared as
stable has bugs ;)

> So we think if BlueZ is used for the commercial use, the stable version is necessary,
> because a commercial product is required to be a high quality.

Bugs are bugs. Even if I declare a BlueZ version as stable, I can't
assure that I don't overlooked something. This is the human part of
software engineering. Lets talk about details and not esoteric needs.

Regards

Marcel




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2004-06-27 17:13:36

by Nicholas A. Preyss

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [Bluez-devel] Questions about BlueZ in commercial use

On 0, KeiHachi <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks for your reply, nicholas.
> > If this is the first GPL software you are using, please read and
> > understand the implications of this license. This is no offense, but i
> > think some DVD and Router manufacturer didn't do this before integrating
> > linux code in their products.
>
> Thanks.
> I know the topic of GPL in Linux world of course,
> so we have already studied about the license issues,
> and will continue to study more & more about it from now.


> > > - eSCO (enhanced SCO) in Bluetooth 1.2
> > > Do you have any plan to develop these?
> >
> > I am not Marcel and not writing any kernel code, but i listened his talk
> > at Linuxtag Karlsruhe. I think the problem is the lack of the end-user
> > products already supporting this. But it is on his plan:
> >
> > http://www.holtmann.org/papers/bluetooth/lt2004_slides.pdf
>
> Thanks.
> I think he will need to spend a little extra time (maybe a few months)
> for supporting eSCO.

I think if you pay him for supporting eSCO, then it will be very quickly
integrated.

> > > - Audio/Video related profiles
> > > Do you have any plan to develop these(A2DP, AVRCP)?
> >
> > He posted some time ago a request, that if people supply him such
> > hardware he would implent those support.
>
> Do you mean that offering a headphone with Bluetooth audio functionality
> to him is necessary to develop A2DP?

Look here:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=8643774
I don't know whether someone donated anything after this request, but I
think he can't get enought. ;)

> > I don't understand, are you looking for a company that provides such
> > support or you want to start a business providing such support?
> > I don't know of the first, but contacting the developer directly, one
> > may provide such support. The second is of course possible.
>
> I supposed the first one you mentioned. The latter one is out of my
> supposition.
> If you have a few guesses about such a company that provides the
> support of using BlueZ, please tell me the name of such a company.

I don't know of any...

> Or, please forgive me for asking this rude question, but,
> could the developers of BlueZ community provide the support to ensure
> the quality, as counter value for some maintenance fee?

..but i am quite sure this might be possible. Marcel while probably
reply itself. He is the best suited person, for such a job.

> > It is so stable, you don't need one, ;) Just kidding. Why do you think,
> > there is no stable version? I think the releases are considered stable
> > and the CVS stuff and the utils2/libs2 are the testing branch.
>
> For example, Affix provides us these two versions software,
> the testing version and the stable version.
> http://affix.sourceforge.net/#download
>
> I suppose such version control or management like Affix.
>
> If a new profile is testing or has been released immediately
> after the development, probably some bugs are still included.
> So we think if BlueZ is used for the commercial use, the stable
> version is necessary,
> because a commercial product is required to be a high quality.

Yeah I understand your problem and IMO you are partly right. There is no
so strict seperation of a testing and a stable tree. But you have to
seperate: the generic ACL/RFCOMM support is quite stable. You can use
it without integrating all those parts which might be considered not
completely stable.
I personaly wouldn't use HID or SCO support in a commercial device.

> If I misundersood, I am sorry.
> The utils2/libs2 are the testing version, the others are the
> stable version, you mean?

yes

> If so, is the modification of the kernel part still stable?

You mean those -mh patches for 2.6?

nicholas


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