On March 16, MontaVista announced that we had been elected to the GENIVI Alliance board of directors. Last week, I spoke with Dan Cauchy, MontaVista VP Marketing, about this election and what it means to MontaVista.
First, some background. GENIVI is an alliance among several companies in the automotive in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) space who perceive some common goals centered around a solid operating system and development environment for IVI. GENIVI’s roles include:
- aligning requirements
- delivering reference implementations
- offering certification programs
There is a great page on the GENIVI website discussing their strategic initiatives as well as the benefits delivered by the GENIVI platform. Dan also explained a great deal in an interview with Automotive Industries magazine.
The following information is my own opinion based on my conversation with Dan and on my research.
Details about GENIVI
The automotive electronics industry has historically been dominated by proprietary solutions, which means a closed environment with few players. The automotive industry is now saying, “Look what is happening in mobile, why can’t automotive follow the same trend? Let’s use Linux, let’s open source, and our ecosystem can flourish.” GENIVI is creating that ecosystem, first by building a reference implementation based on Linux. The APIs and frameworks must be well-known to make it easy to port applications to this new reference architecture.
One can draw a lot of parallels between GENIVI and the telecommunications industry. Telecom adopted Linux 6-7 years ago, moving away from traditional embedded systems based on VxWorks or OSC. They needed a lot of assistance - they were not Linux experts, and MontaVista was there to help. Linux supports several specific proprietary boards used in telecom, and MontaVista works to support others. More importantly, telecom companies require that boards be supported for at least 10 years. All of these issues now apply to the automotive industry as well - they are exactly where telecom was 6 years ago.
GENIVI’s competitors include the incumbents, meaning the RTOS companies who have enjoyed a proprietary market until now. Going forward, who knows? Right now, GENIVI is the only cross-organizational consortium working on IVI.
What is Gained by Cooperation
The answer to that is not specific to automotive, but applies across the board to all embedded device manufacturers and ISVs. The biggest advantage with Linux is openness, and the semiconductor industry is definitely on the bandwagon. There are already drivers and a base Linux port available from semiconductor manufacturers with each new release, so the software has a strong head start on traditional embedded systems. Commercial Linux entities, including MontaVista, can take it from there and add value: fix bugs, provide development tools and support, offer documentation and training. For a company like QNX, Green Hills, or Wind River (in terms of VxWorks) to support all chips they would need thousands of engineers. Semiconductor manufacturers already have that, so they provide immediate value when they issue drivers and a kernel with their offerings, and encourage adoption of their products.
This immediate support is a huge advantage with Linux. Now everyone says, for our next product, it makes absolute sense to do it with Linux the drivers are already there, we’re months ahead of any other potential OS.
GENIVI Compared with LiMO
GENIVI has some properties in common with LiMO, the Linux mobile software alliance, in that they are both consortiums of interested partners intent on building a reference platform. At least, that was the intent with LiMO, but they have created a complex licensing structure with four types of licenses. When code is contributed to LiMO, the contributor decides which license is applied. The result has been almost a “closed” open source group - if you are a LiMO member you can use the code, but the situation is confusing for non-members. Many LiMO members are now going with Android instead.
GENIVI takes a different approach. Everything is “true” open source, and the project is open as well. All milestones and code drops will be done in the open.
It is noteworthy that of the 25 LiMO-compliant phones presented at last year’s Mobile World Congress, 22 of them were running MontaVista Linux.
GENIVI Development Process
The GENIVI development process is managed by a company with experience managing consortiums, and each member contributes time and integration effort. GENIVI is not developing software as much as leveraging and integrating open-source code.
GENIVI is completely decentralized - meetings occur in Detroit, Europe, or Japan as needed. All member companies have a number of people contributing to project, and there are various workgroups with different contributors. Some are architects, some produce design specs, many are coders.
GENIVI History and Direction
GENIVI 1.0 grew out of a private project, based on Moblin for an Atom processor.
GENIVI 2.0, currently in production, is a brand-new complete rewrite from the bottom up, starting with new specifications and requirements. The reference software will be more processor- and software-neutral, and will be required to run on both x86 and ARM processors. This new operating system starts from scratch. It is put together from different sources, leveraging existing open-source software as much as possible. One potential starting point is Meego.
GENIVI Governance
I was curious about whether GENIVI will eventually contribute its reference software to the Linux Foundation, as Intel did with Moblin. Right now, the plan is for GENIVI to host and govern themselves.
Disruptive Influences (like Android)
In the last two years, we have seen Android completely disrupt LiMO and has basically take over the mobile industry. I was curious whether the same thing might happen with IVI, with Android or some other stack.
Android has been discussed as alternative, but I don’t see the kind of disruption being possible in automotive that has happened in mobile. Auto guys are risk-averse. They prefer rock-solid, high-quality solutions over the latest bells and whistles, and they need a 10-year lifetime for devices. The current path is the direction they will take for the foreseeable future.
GENIVI Compared with AUTOSAR
GENIVI will focus on IVI (as opposed to base automotive systems like engine management or antilock brakes). SAR is a protocol for interfacing between different devices. AUTOSAR is an organization that defines SAR and regulates compliance. In infotainment, the focus is much more on user experience in terms of display, graphics, maps, video, and audio. That being said, IVI systems may need to interface with SAR. That remains to be debated.
GENIVI Partner Differentiation
Partners will differentiate the end product by feature sets and user interface (UI) or Human-Machine Interface (HMI), which is outside the scope of the reference platform. In terms of userspace, GENIVI will provide a framework and a set of APIs only, and leave all user interface issues to the branding partner, or to the ISV ecosystem. An HMI will be provided for demonstration purposes.
GENIVI in Aviation
As a frequent traveler and a private pilot, I was curious if GENIVI would impact what I might see in a commercial plane or even in a private one. Aviation is currently outside the scope of the GENIVI alliance. There are some similar requirements, but a lot of different ones, as well as regulatory issues to consider. Thus, aviation is not a focus at this point.
GENIVI and MontaVista
MontaVista’s current plans are to offer a GENIVI-compliant IVI product running on x86 and ARM. Of course, every sales prospect will come with an offer for professional services, as the base reference platform still requires a lot of userspace work and possibly kernel customizations depending on the specific board, peripherals, and customer requirements.
MontaVista’s Montabello product has a lot of similarities with GENIVI 1.0. Package for package, they are perhaps 75% similar. That makes it a good starting place for an IVI system.
Conclusion
Our election to the GENIVI board appears to be a very positive thing for MontaVista as well as for the IVI industry. Watch this space for more on the subject as it evolves.
