Roadmap 2018

[Christian Helmuth]

Hello,

thanks for your input and ideas. In fact, the ebook reader as a
potential Genode target pops up from time to time, but it never gained
traction though. In my opinion one reason is a lack of interest in the
current developer community as there are many other attractive
targets. Another reason is the diversity of hardware platforms and
peripherals used in embedded devices as well as power-management
demands, which always brings a significant increase of efforts to
enable devices to a useful degree. I appreciate you sharing that
valuable information about the ereader hardware landscape, which may
help to spark some interest in the community. We core developers
decided on the more desktop-oriented Sculpt (and a touch of
networking) for this year's roadmap.

The upcoming version of the Genode Foundations book will be published
in the usual PDF but also in ebook formats. Because of personal
interest, I'll revive and optimize the unofficial EPUB version we had
in the past.

Greets
-- 
Christian Helmuth
Genode Labs

https://www.genode-labs.com/ · https://genode.org/
https://twitter.com/GenodeLabs · /ˈdʒiː.nəʊd/

Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden
Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth


On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 01:38:26PM +0100, tgvb at ...550... wrote:
> Having followed Genode's interesting quarterly development updates
> for quite some time, I hope to finally make a move towards a
> hands-on understanding and therefore set the modest goal for myself
> to at least read the entire handbook this year. Not as exciting as
> committing to any real development work, but hopefully easy enough
> to actually achieve and leaving room for more.
> 
> On to wishes.
> 
> 1. I think, it would be a good side project for developers, to add
> support for at least one ebook reader. My reasoning behind this is,
> that these devices are relatively cheap and actually useful beyond
> (embedded) software development work and seem to offer an easy
> enough application scenario to support. This could also raise
> awareness of Genode's existence beyond the current level.
> 
> Ereaders' innovation cycles are more developer friendly than, say,
> laptops', tablets' or smartphones' and the hardware used is more
> homogeneous. Many current models still use the i.MX6 SoC, including
> Kindle and Tolino devices, which Genode developers seem to be
> willing to support anyway.
> 
> The Tolino Shine 2HD, for instance, would appear to be an attractive
> target, since it boots from a microSD card, which could easily be
> replaced by one with a Genode image on it. While the technically
> very similar Kobo Glo HD does not seem to be sold any longer in
> Germany, it might still be in other countries (otherwise, I would
> have suggested the Glo HD, since its case is easier to open; Tolino
> and Kobo devices are designed by the same manufacturer, so that
> their hardware has always been very similar).
> 
> Ebook readers are not much more expensive than a development board
> but come with the benefit of an extra display. Some popular third
> party reading apps like koreader are also internally based on mupdf,
> for which I think, I've read, Genode had already some support, which
> leads me to believe, that a purely Genode-based typical ebook reader
> scenario could be within reach with reasonable effort from a
> knowledgable developer, who has run a Genode scenario on i.MX6
> before.
> 
> This could be a basis for a later support of further ebook readers,
> including more professionally oriented ones like the Onyx Boox Max
> Carta (also uses i.MX 6), which could even be used as a full
> development machine, considering its large eye-friendly display and
> built-in Bluetooth for keyboard connection. Maybe an incentive for
> sunlight-affine programmers, if such exist, not to mention my wish
> to see Genode support stylus input in general.
> 
> 2. While ebook reader support itself would also offer Genode the
> opportunity to present its native documentation, the handbook, in an
> attractive form, it might be an easier first step to provide an
> official EPUB version of the handbook. The current PDF version from
> the web site, for its formatting, is not very ebook reader friendly,
> regarding the mainstream 6 inch devices. It would be nice to either
> see an EPUB version or a PDF optimised for common ereader screen
> sizes. Given the surprisingly poor margin truncating support of many
> of these devices, a PDF should have small margins. (The current
> state of stock ereader software screams for something better.)
> 
> I think, these two points are my main input for the roadmap 2018
> discussion. I also like the quality and resilience aspect, which
> Norman alluded to in his discussion starter. Seeing critical
> components implemented in SPARK might be a step in a right direction
> and even would be, if there were nothing more to it, than a mere
> shift towards a more readable implementation language.