rdk table1708_rdk 29/08/2015 09:07 Page 2
value is,” responds Gounard.
“But one of the disappointing things,
I think,” laments Hannent, “has been the
lack of support from some RDK SoC
vendors for the open standards part of
RDK in terms of the lower layer
abstraction.”
“Certainly there is a point that some
people may not contribute enough back
to RDK,” says Alliez.
“It is important to look at shared
value, that’s what an open innovation
programme is about. No one develops a
component to give it away for free so
there has to be a shared value,” says
Gounard, “if you contribute a component
the payback will be the maintenance and
the lifecycle of the component because it
will be complemented and improved by
the community.”
“That leads to what RDK is good at;
reuseability, the multiplication factor
and many challenges for operators are in
that bracket. There are a number of
vendors that provide optimised layers
within RDK as well and maintain a
differentiation for them; RDK doesn’t
restrict you in terms of the
implementation method,” advises
Schutte.
“But it is not without its challenges.
We work with some technology vendors
as a kind of conduit because they have
legal advice – right or wrong – that the
RDK licence would expose them to IPR
risks that could undermine their
business model,” says Hannent.
“I can understand that if I were a
small company with a great innovation I
wouldn’t contribute it to RDK,” says
Alliez. “Clearly companies like Cisco or
Alticast have the manpower or
capabilities to maintain what we
contribute, but even within Cisco we
don’t contribute everything…we are
developing new services based on RDK
but whether we contribute them or not is
often a discussion with the provider we
have developed them for.”
“This has to be client-led,” agrees
Schutte. “This is one of the big
differentiators between an approach like
Android and RDK, both are cross
industry development platforms one is
driven b HۙH X