Jump to content

Tizen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dhart (talk | contribs) at 02:36, 17 March 2013 (→‎Ecosystem: wikified Firefox OS & added Ubuntu Touch). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Tizen
DeveloperLinux Foundation, Samsung, Intel, Tizen Community
OS familyLinux
Working stateCurrent
Source modelMixed: Open Source and Proprietary
Initial releaseJanuary 5, 2012
Latest release2.0 / February 18, 2013[1]
Latest preview2.0 alpha / September 25, 2012[2]
Repository
Marketing targetMobile & PC, cross device, cross platform, tablets, notebooks, smartphones, GPS smartnav, In-vehicle infotainment, Smart TV
Package managerRPM Package Manager
PlatformsARM and x86
Kernel typeMonolithic (Linux)
Default
user interface		Graphical (Web applications)
LicenseGPLv2 (Linux kernel), LGPL, Apache License, BSD, Flora License, Proprietary (SDK)
Official websitewww.tizen.org

Tizen (/ˈtaɪzɛn/) is an operating system for devices including smartphones, tablets, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) devices, and smart TVs. It is an open source system that aims to offer a consistent user experience across devices. Tizen's main components are the Linux kernel and the WebKit runtime. The Tizen project resides within the Linux Foundation and is governed by a Technical Steering Group (TSG) composed of Intel and Samsung.

Overview

The Tizen Association[3] has been formed to guide the industry role of Tizen, including gathering of requirements, identification and facilitation of service models, and overall industry marketing and education.

Tizen provides an environment for application developers based on the Javascript libraries jQuery and jQuery Mobile. The software development kit (SDK) allows developers to use HTML5 and related web technologies to write applications that run on many types of devices.

Ecosystem

The Core Mobile Web Platform Community Group[4] (Coremob) brings developers, equipment manufacturers, browser vendors and operators together to agree on core features developers can depend on.

Of pre-release systems, Tizen's WebKit-based browser ranks the highest on HTML5 standards tests.[5]

There is also Tizen IVI, operating system of the Automotive Grade Linux Workgroup.[6]

HTML5 applications run on Tizen, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch, WebOS and BlackBerry 10 under a browser runtime with offline capabilities. In addition each partner (manufacturer or operator) would have its own user interface developed with a native (not public) SDK but technology that can be used for this has not been disclosed.

Android applications can run on Tizen devices with OpenMobile's Application Compatibility Layer (ACL).[7]

Applications based on Qt, GTK+ and EFL frameworks can run on Tizen IVI.[8] While there is no official support for these third-party frameworks, according to the explanation on the Tizen SDK web site [5] Tizen applications for mobile devices can be developed without relying on an official Tizen IDE as long as the application complies with Tizen packaging rules.

History

Tizen is the result of a long process of Linux adoption by manufacturers. A complete family tree is available.[9]

Samsung's collaboration with the EFL project and especially Carsten Haitzler was known as LiMo for years. It was renamed Tizen when Intel joined the project in September 2011 after leaving the MeeGo project. It is common misconception to say Tizen is a continuation of MeeGo; in fact it builds on Samsung Linux Platform (SLP), reference implementation delivered within LiMo.[6]

On January 1, 2012, the LiMo Foundation was renamed Tizen Association. The Tizen Association is led by a Board of Directors. Tizen Association works closely with the Linux Foundation which supports the Tizen open source project.[10]

On April 30, 2012, Tizen released version 1.0, code-named Larkspur.[11]

On May 7, 2012, American wireless carrier Sprint Nextel announced it had agreed to become part of the Tizen Association and plans to include Tizen-powered devices in their future lineup.[12]

September 16, 2012: The Automotive Grade Linux Workgroup[6] will work with the Tizen project as the reference distribution optimized for a broad set of automotive applications ranging from Instrumentation Cluster to In-Vehicle-Infotainment (IVI) and more.

On September 25, 2012, Tizen released version 2.0 alpha, code-named Magnolia.[2] It offered an enhanced web-based framework with more features, better HTML5/W3C API support and more device APIs, multi-process Webkit2-based Web Runtime and better security for web applications. Support for OpenGL ES has been enhanced. Newly added Platform SDK has been provided to help with platform development based on Open Build Service (OBS).

On February 18, 2013, Tizen released version 2.0, code-named Magnolia.[1] Apart from further enhancements of the Web frameworks and APIs, native application framework with Integrated development environment and associated tools have been added supporting features such as background applications, IP Push, and Text-To-Speech. Inclusion of this framework is an effect of the expected merging parts of the Open Services Platform (OSP) framework and APIs of the Bada operating system with the Tizen platform.

Market releases

As of February 2013 there were no announcements either from Samsung or Intel about market releases of Tizen on actual devices. Unofficial disclosures typically come from Samsung officials at conferences. Allegedly, the first devices were planned to hit the market in second half of 2012.[13] It was then clarified that first quarter of 2013 is not a date of actual product launch but demonstration at Mobile World Congress.[14] Tizen Devices made by Samsung would ship later in 2013 (perhaps in July or August[15]) but the exact date has not been disclosed.[16]

A possible cause of delay is Samsung's transition to Bada on top of Linux as a base for the operating system. A Samsung employee involved in the project explained on the project's mailing list that he had not enough permission or knowledge to disclose plans regarding the future of the platform, pointing to the committee of executives in Tizen Association.[17]

Licensing model

Presented originally as an open source operating system, Tizen 2 has a complicated licensing model. Its SDK is built on top of open source components [7] but the entire SDK has been published under a non-open-source Samsung licence [8].

The operating system itself consists of many open source components. A number of components internally developed by Samsung (e.g. boot animation, calendar, task manager, music player applications) are however released under the Flora License which is most likely incompatible with requirements of the Open Source Initiative.

  • Bada, an operating system for mobile phones which Open Services Platform forms the native application framework of Tizen 2.0 and later.
  • Cordova implementation for Tizen[18] is a JavaScript wrapper library allowing to build and run Cordova (Phonegap) based projects on Tizen.
  • River Trail[19] The goal of Intel Lab’s River Trail project is to enable data-parallelism in web applications. By leveraging multiple CPU cores and vector instructions, River Trail achieves significant speedup over sequential JavaScript.

References

  1. ^ a b "Tizen 2.0 Magnolia SDK and Source Code Release". Tizen.org. Retrieved February 19, 2013.
  2. ^ a b "Tizen 2.0 Alpha SDK and Source Code release". The Tizen Technical Steering Group. September 25, 2012. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  3. ^ "Home". TIZEN Association. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  4. ^ "Core Mobile Web Platform Community Group". W3.org. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  5. ^ "The HTML5 Test". Retrieved January 28, 2013.
  6. ^ a b "Automotive Grade Linux". Automotive.linuxfoundation.org. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  7. ^ "Data Sheet - ACL for Tizen" (PDF). Openmobile.co. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  8. ^ "Tizen IVI Architecture" (PDF). Retrieved January 5, 2012.
  9. ^ "tizen-history/tizen-history.pdf at master · kumadasu/tizen-history · GitHub" (PDF). Github.com. August 28, 2012. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  10. ^ "Sprint News - Sprint Joins Tizen Association, Adds to its Board of Directors". Embedded-m2m-solutions.tmcnet.com. May 7, 2012. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  11. ^ "Tizen 1.0 Larkspur SDK and Source Code Release". Tizen.org. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  12. ^ Wallace, Kristen. "Sprint Joins The Tizen Association". Sprint Newsroom. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
  13. ^ [1]
  14. ^ [2]
  15. ^ Samsung to launch first Tizen smartphone as early as July // cnet.com
  16. ^ [3]
  17. ^ [4]
  18. ^ "apache/incubator-cordova-tizen · GitHub". Github.com. Retrieved November 22, 2012.
  19. ^ RiverTrail. "Home · RiverTrail/RiverTrail Wiki · GitHub". Github.com. Retrieved November 22, 2012.

Companies supporting Tizen:

Developers:

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tizen&oldid=544821254"