In this session, we will discuss the mainline status of several ARM SoCs used in mobile products. The average phone uses kernel software that is 3 years old, 20 versions behind mainline, and has 1 to 3 million lines of code out-of-tree. The "Device Mainlining" project, a joint effort between Linaro and the Linux Foundation, seeks to address this problem.
Some of the activities of this project are:
- publishing tools for mainline analysis
- finding big areas where multiple vendors have code out of tree
- identifying institutional barriers to corporate developer mainlining, and addressing them through education, training, and collaboration
- working with upstream to address deficient sub-systems or needed maintainer assistance
It is hoped that discussion will ensue about ways to continue enhancing this work, to get more SoC code mainlined.
