Re: [ECOS] How do you like eCos

["Lewin A.R.W. Edwards" <larwe at larwe dot com>]

Hi Hugo,

> > instructions, and a big part of the problem is that instead of providing
> > specific snapshots of known-working versions, the install instructions
> > refer to nonexistent historical versions.
>
>not the "political officer"^W^W "commercial contact" ;-) here.  Please take
>this as a personal aside, not an official Red Hat frontman's comment!
>In a nutshell, providing specific snapshots of known-working versions which
>we have thoroughly tested and that we continue to test for your specific
>platform, is the business side that allows all this stuff's existence in

I understand this political issue. The chicken and egg problem I have for 
you is this: I'm the lead engineer on a consumer electronics line 
[www.digi-frame.com], currently running a proprietary OS (written by 
myself) and shipping thousands of pieces a year, of two models. Next year 
we want _at least_ three _new_ models including a new ultra-low-cost 
high-sales-volume unit. We want TCP/IP and multitasking and out-of-box 
support for our new CPU of choice, and eCOS looks good to me for that reason.

So we are not just making some contracted doodad that's going to sell three 
pieces and only make $1000 profit; we can afford a service contract. Heck, 
at the price I heard mentioned I'd be willing to forego a few pizzas and 
buy it out of my own pocket, if it works. But there's the rub: I cannot 
make a good case for this product, even if it was entirely free, if it 
doesn't work.

Thus far I'm waiting in agony for eval hardware so I've not been able to do 
very much beyond build the tools (kinda - I can't build the tools for 
arm-thumb, only those for arm-elf), play with the configuration tool, and 
find out that I can't install the TCP/IP module.

>And for most people who have climbed that
>learning curve, it seems that newer (and maybe unreliable) is better than
>more solid but out of date in terms of feature set.  Hence the anoncvs

Hmm. "Unreliable" isn't the word I'd use, more "undocumented". The tools 
and the OS itself might be exceedingly reliable, but the documentation is 
rather like one of those pictures that looks like a splatter of colored 
dots until you defocus your eyes. (I've never been able to see the hidden 
picture in one of those things, either).

Lewin A.R.W. Edwards (Embedded Engineer)
Got any Commodore 16 or VIC-20 hardware, cartridges, tapes?
Visit http://www.larwe.com/vintage/
================================================
Work: http://www.digi-frame.com/
Personal: http://www.zws.com/ and http://www.larwe.com/