Smallfoot

:For the fictional character see Small Foot.Smallfoot is the name of both a Rapid application development toolkit and embedded operating system designed and released by Caldera/SCO in both Unix and Linux formats.cite web | url = http://ir.sco.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=137086 | title = SCO Announces Broad Array of New Unix Products, Channel Support and Training Programs | date= June 15, 2004 | last = SCO | accessdate = 2007-10-05] cite web | url = http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=99268 | title = SCO and Wincor Nixdorf to Offer Joint Retail Solutions | date= January 13, 2003 | last = SCO | accessdate = 2007-10-05] Created for use in embedded environments such as point of sale systems and gaming, the toolkits are used to create specifically tailored operating systems geared towards the desired use.cite web | url = http://www.crn.com/software/18825000 | title = SCO: Project Legend, UnixWare SVR6 Will Drive Future Channel Business | date= August 19, 2003 | last = CRN | accessdate = 2007-10-05] These customized and stripped down versions of the operating systems make less of a footprint, hence the names "Smallfoot embedded UNIX" and "Smallfoot embedded Linux" respectively.

Smallfoot is also notable in that it was a key Linux product of the SCO Group, developed for both the UNIX and Linux platforms and distributed by SCO and Caldera Systems after its purchase of SCO. In the IBM vs SCO (2003- ) lawsuit, SCO denies (or has denied) distribution of Linux kernel code, however SCO Smallfoot is based on both 2.4.10 and 2.6.1 Linux kernel versions.Fact|date=February 2008

History

Smallfoot was proposed in 2001 by Justin 'Jack' Richards, then principal open source consultant for EMEIA. Richards joined SCO in 1999 as the first dedicated Linux consultant and was tasked with building SCOs' consulting resource in this area. Richards was a contributor ( one of many ) to Matthew Marshs' "Linux Networking Unleashed" book. The Smallfoot concept was championed by David Taylor, vice president of professional services at SCO, who gave the go ahead for initial prototypes to be written.

Smallfoot... started as a way of positioning Linux as a way forward for SCO customers using the outdated 3.2.4.2 OpenServer POS solution. We (SCO) had literally millions of POS seats around the world using this almost pre-historic version of UNIX and we couldn't support it for ever, not to mention the fact that the global sales force just couldn't understand selling Linux. I'd come to SCO to inject Linux into its veins - a new life blood to a declining market share - and a Linux POS platformed seemed like the path of least resistance. I spoke with Dave [Taylor] about some work I had been doing and suggested that we should look into Linux POS. He asked some questions about technology, the market and the competitors and from that point on he was hooked. -- Jack Richards ( 17th August 2007 )Fact|date=November 2007

Version one - Linux

Richards designed the first Linux version in late 2001 and produced a number of proof of concept systems including "Doom on a Disk", a bootable mini-CDROM based version that ran the free version of ID Software' DOOM game. The CDROM was given out as a free demonstration at Linux World that year.

Smallfoot itself was the result of a number of internal and external projects that Richards was working on at the time. The initial idea behind Smallfoot came from a project that he was working on to build a custom Linux distribution, based on Red Hat 5 for Linetex Computers based in Guilford and a project that a colleague sitting across the room was working on for Deutsche Bahn (an embedded Openserver solutions for platform messaging).

Alan Bristow, then the IT director at Linetex commissioned SCO Professional Services to build a shrink-wrapped Linux distribution for a project called eSP, a PC based systems management and monitoring platform.

Soon after this, the late Chuck Zenkus (IT director and project director) from Incredible Technologies approached Caldera in Utah with the idea of creating a Linux development platform and OS platform for its new TouchIT system.

Caldera did not have the engineering bandwidth at the time and so subcontracted the work out to SCO in the UK.

Richards was tasked with developing a stateless Linux OS platform and development environment. The basic requirements of the OS were that it could remain stable and secure in the field, whilst performing 3D SDL/OpenGL graphical operations and stereo 44.1 kHz wave playback on a moderate CPU platform. The TouchIt system had just 32MB of RAM and was based on a Celeron 500. Of this 32MB, 16MB was actually shared on the motherboard by the i815 graphics card.

TouchIt was shown at the 2001 ATEI in Las Vegas, opposite Nolan Bushnells' UWink system. UWink was also based on Linux, but had a special button in the cash box that needed to be pressed to shut it down without corruption. It took 3 minutes to boot.

Conversely, TouchIT [http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/06/19/1755242&mode=thread] took 33 seconds to boot into game and the power cord could just be pulled to power down the system. TouchIT survived over 40,000 hours of testing without a single OS failure while UWink died if you pulled out the power whilst running too often.

These two platforms formed the knowledge base for Smallfoot.

It was at this point that Ransom Love visited the UK offices and viewed a demonstration of Smallfoot. Further funding and support followed.

Version two - Toolkit and image builder now in the project roadmap

Later in the development cycle, Federico Ciggonini, an engineer in the TEAM group at SCO in Watford, was tasked with implementing an OS cutter based on Richards' specifications that would allow the stock OpenLinux Platform to be used as the base OS for a Smallfoot deployment.

At this point, Allan Clark became influential in the design of the Smallfoot platform. Clark, based in Murray Hill near New York, provided a large amount of support and development input to Richards' team in the UK.

Allan was in charge of and co-ordinated a group of developers in the United States, based at Murray Hill, New Jersey.

The first customer

The first Smallfoot customer was Budgens Supermarkets. Budgens, a part of the Musgrave group, were looking to implement Linux at their point of sale systems and UK VSP PCMS group wanted a Linux platform on which to integrate Beanstore [http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=99268] .

Andrew Bourke was in charge of the Beanstore initiative at PCMS and provided input to SCO regarding PCMSs' specific needs. Smallfoot grew through this input, incorporating JPOS driver stack and JVM 1.3 (Sun) support.

Luke Trevorrow - IT operations Manager at Budgens, under Garry Barr then IT Director, was a key proponent of Open Source technology and acted as a key advisor to SCO on the Smallfoot project.

" As a supermarket, we [Budgens] were keen to reduce cost structures associated with our retail estate, then Microsoft based. We evaluated the alternatives and with the help of SCO,later GNU [Solutions Ltd] we found a solution that could potentially meet our needs.

In all, we invested heavily in the development cycle of retail hardened Linux and saw some significant benefits. Over the life cycle of the retail systems running Linux we had less than 5 field failures in 5 years, that with an estate of 800+ POS systems.

At the time, we took a big leap forward in the [retail] industry, no other retailer of a size anything like ours were using Linux, let alone in the store Estate. But having been involved in other Open Source initiatives before [http://warfare.sourceforge.net Warfare] [http://jwebchart.sourceforge.net/ JWebChart ] , I had faith that Linux was going to be the right choice.

From this early, controversial start [http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2003/02/04/192202/budgens-spurns-microsoft-platform-over-licence-fears.htm Budgens Spurn Microsoft ] we eventually took the Open Source approach further saving thousands [http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2003/02/04/192202/budgens-spurns-microsoft-platform-over-licence-fears.htm CA and OSS,enable Budgens to save 375,000 GBP] " - Luke Trevorrow (Application Architect - IBM)

The first OEM to re-sell Smallfoot - almost....

In 2002, David Taylor, Larry Gasparo, Jack Richards and Avinash Verma lead a delegation from SCO to the IBM RSS group in North Carolina.

IBM was represented by Jim Budd, Tammy Garneax, Beth-Anne Vaughn, Mike Paolini, Rick Puetzer and ultimately General Manager of IBM RSS Worldwide, Tom Petersen.

The aim of the meeting was to get IBM to resell Smallfoot as the core of its ROLO offering. After many meetings, including a visit to the Austin Texas HQ, IBM was all but set to go forward and sign, however at the last minute SCO had a change of direction and decided to take IBM to court over Linux instead.

Version three - UnixWare

In 2003 SCO decided to drop its Linux product line and so Richards was tasked with re-designing Smallfoot for Unixware.

It is of note that Smallfoot for Linux continued to be sold to a number of customers in the UK and engineering on it continued on a custom basis with Barcrest - part of the IGT group for OpenGL based fruit machines. The work was undertaken by Mike Moore, also famous for his Barleywood Z80 simulator many years previously.

Smallfoot Version 1.0 for Unixware was the only UNIX version that Richards was involved with Chief Architect. The actual implementation work was undertaken by a team of SCO UNIX programmers under the control of Allan Clark [http://wp.chickenandporn.com/category/tech/linux/] . Clark was later to take charge of Smallfoot after Jacks' resignation in 2003 to form GNU Solutions Limited [http://www.gnu-solutions.com] .

Smallfoot continues to be sold by SCO, though only in UNIX form. IRES ( engineered by Novell ) today delivers a platform that is remarkably similar to the ideas and prototypes behind Smallfoot.

mallfoot derivatives

Whilst not based on any of the codebase of Smallfoot, Gazelle from GNU Solutions was the next Retail Hardened OS developed by Richards and in many ways represents what SCO Smallfoot could have been.

GNU Solutions was founded by Jack Richards, James Hall and Chinyanta Nkonkomalimba in 2003 to build the next generation Linux POS platform Gazelle (r), used in Budgens and Krispy Kreme in the EU, packaged with PCMS Vision Beanstore.

Gazelle is no longer sold or supported and GNU Solutions has been sold to a third party, its web site is still extant at [http://www.gnu-solutions.com] but no longer provides support or sales to the public.

Potential GPL violation of Smallfoot

Smallfoot was a complete Linux distribution developed from OpenLinux and other GPL code.

Source code was originally distributed from the SCO server psint.sco.com and later psint.caldera.com.

Neither servers are available today and whilst there may still be active users of the original Linux code base, there is no visibility of source code, nor after requests for it from SCO any offering of code base.

Technical specifications - Linux version

Linux Kernel : 2.4.10 and 2.6.1 with Linux Progress PatchGlibc based

RAM Footprint : 32MBDisk Footprint : 8MB through 128MB

CPU Supported : Intel Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III and Celeron, Winchip C6,AMD K5, K6, Athlon

Tested POS Platforms : Wincor Beetle i815, IBM SurePOS

Base OS : Linux, based on Open Linux from Caldera

Notes : Many of the binaries used in Smallfoot came from OpenLinux 3.1, however these were object stripped using the object copy and strip program.

References