The Linux Foundation today is releasing a new paper that reports on the value of the Long-Term Support Initiative (LTSI), which is a common Linux kernel base for embedded products and is maintained by the Consumer Electronics Working Group at The Linux Foundation.

The paper reports the value of LTSI is $3 million per version. The authors of the paper arrived at the economic value of LTSI based on the methodology originally used in a highly-regarded study by David A. Wheeler and that was later used in a 2008 Linux Foundation study that estimated the value of Linux. Details of the methodology and results as applied to LTSI are on pages 5 and 6 of the report.

LTSI is important because device makers are doing significant back-porting, bug testing and driver development on their own, which carries substantial cost in terms of time-to-market, as well as development and engineering effort to maintain those custom kernels. Through collaboration in this initiative, these CE vendors are reducing the duplication of effort currently prevalent in the consumer electronics industry. This new paper helps calculate that total cost savings in more definite terms.

To download the paper, please vist:https://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/workgroup/value-of-ltsi

The project today is providing for both an annual release of a Linux kernel suitable for supporting the lifespan of consumer electronics products and regular updates of those releases for two years. Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman oversees this maintenance and the LTSI kernel tree for this industry-wide project created and supported by Hitachi, LG Electronics, NEC, Panasonic, Qualcomm Atheros, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sony and Toshiba.LTSI 3.10 is schedule for release in the new year. For more information about LTSI and to get involved, please visit the LTSI website.