Is eCosPro a fork of eCos?

[Liam Knight <liam dot knight01 at gmail dot com>]

Apologies for the wide distribution. Unfortunately the owner of the
eCos group on the social media website I belong to does not believe in
free speech and has censured my responses to the group. It appears
that if you express an opinion that differs to his, he would classify
it as off topic or abusive, as so moderate and censure it. Fortunately
we live in a world of free speech so I would appreciate that members
of this particular group on this list point the group to this email
which shoould get archived somewhere here:
http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss/2013-03/

As I am bringing in a new audience, some backgroup. The owner of the
group is John Dallaway, an eCos maintainer, and the group is closed to
anyone who works for eCosCentric (stand up now anyone else who was
refused entry to the group and be counted). John started a discussion
topic about eCosCentric and whether eCosPro is a fork of eCos, which
he maintains it is, and claims to have verified this with eCosCentric.
 He has also excluded members of eCosCentric from joining the group
because he maintains that the group is for discussion about eCos and
not eCosPro, and thereby insists that the members of eCosCentric are
unable to contribute to the group on topics regarding eCos.

Does anyone spot the first inconsistency? John maintains the group is
for discussion about eCos and not eCosPro, but yet starts a
conversation about eCosCentric and eCosPro. Further, he makes a number
of statements and claims, either inferred or direct, about both but
prohibits eCosCentric from being able to respond. In addition, the
moment somebody expresses an opinion that differs from his in support
of eCosCentric, he censors them.  China, North Korea, here I come...

So sadly I have to resort to media where free speech is allowed, which
is why I am making my response to him public and on this list. I
believe that other members of the list need to know the kind of person
he really is, as well as me of course (2x divorced, no kids, described
as volatile). The remainder of this email is directed towards John,
but intended for public scrutiny, comment and opinion.

John, first of all I do not take kindly to being bullied, threatened
or censured. I was brought up in England where we have something
called "free speech", which you do not appear to be familiar with.

>From your response to me on the group you appear to be saying you have
excluded members of eCosCentric from membership of the group because
eCosCentric have forked eCos and because they have a business model
and marketing position that you disagree with. eCosCentric have been
firm supporters of the free version, contributing BSPs, functionality,
toolchains, fixes etc and are clearly still users of the eCos RTOS.
They continue to support it (by your own admission through advice-line
support) and contribute to it, as well as continue to market it along
with eCosPro as a commercial alternative. Given this, I don't believe
that having a commercial alternative that is based on eCos can have
any bearing on whether their members are entitled to join this group.

Whether eCosCentric have forked eCos or not may in dispute, but lets
say for argument's sake they have forked.  They are still users of the
eCos RTOS because surely at the point that eCosCentric forked eCos it
was still eCos?  If not, at what point did the eCos source code no
longer become eCos?  Does your definition of what the eCos RTOS is
move along with the tip of the CVS source tree, or is it the moment
you build on it without your work going into the main source tree? Or
is it the moment you start charging for your extensions or
implementation or the use of them? Or charging others to provide
commercial support?   Surely all this means their members are in a
position to contribute to the group, whatever narrow definition you
declare the eCos RTOS to be? Or does your definition of what entitles
someone someone to join the group conveniently move so that you can
exclude members of eCosCentric from it?

In addition, you are insinuating that the forking of eCos is a bad
thing. Why? I recently read in the British press that forking of a
free project is often seen as the highest form of flattery in the free
open source world. If it's a bad thing, why have your forked the eCos
configuration tool in your own product within Eclipse? Or does the
configuration tool that resides in the eCos CVS repository and the
libcdl technology on which the eCos runtime system depends for
compilation not come into your definition of what is or is not part of
the eCos RTOS?

You also have implied that eCosCentric have forked eCos because there
are alternative implementations of various things (HALs, packages,
etc) in both eCosPro and eCos. That implies that the features you
pointed out existed in eCos before eCosCentric developed their
implementation which is not the case for at least a couple of the
features. For example, their libstdc++ support was developed in 2003,
uSTL was only recently contributed.

I don't see that any addition to eCos that is not contributed to the
original project constitutes a fork. A fork implies a parting of ways
between eCosCentric and the other maintainers, yet eCosCentric are
still an active part of the eCos community and both contribute to and
support it. Also, you infer from your last response to me on the group
that you have spoken to eCosCentric and that they confirm your
position that eCosPro is a fork is correct. I too spoke with the CEO
of eCosCentric last night as your statement that you have discussed
eCosCentric's business model and market positioning made no sense to
me. While he would not be drawn on the apparent sour relationship
between eCosCentric and yourself, he did verify to me their position
which is considerably different from your inference. I can only assume
from both his refusal to be drawn further on you and your comments
that your departure from eCosCentric was not amicable. If this is
true, and that is the real reason for your exclusion of members of
eCosCentric from the group, I would find your behaviour unprofessional
and distasteful and question your impartiality as both owner of the
group and eCos maintainer, as well as your effectiveness as eCos
maintainer.

I am also personally very uncomfortable about making statements or
comments about any person or company without giving them recourse to
back up my comments, respond or defend their position. So while the
eCosCentric CEO has so far refused to comment on the dispute to me
personally, I hope that he now has a platform to refute or support
your claims and uses it!!!

IMHO this group is poorer without their input and eCos would be worse
off without their support and contributions.

>From your definition and response of what entitles anyone to belong to
the group, I believe you would have to exclude EVERYONE in the group
who has:
  1) developed a product using eCos (one assumes they are making money
on their product), or
  2) modified or built on eCos and not had their modifications or
additions put into the main source tree, yourself included
  3) used eCosPro.

Or will your definition of what entitles anyone membership to the
group again simply morph into whatever argument you can use to exclude
members of eCosCentric from it?

My point is that members of eCosCentric are just as able to contribute
to the group just as any other user of the eCos RTOS, probably more so
given that they employ the original architect of eCos.

Which raises another question. This thread. By your own "standard" you
have stated the group is for users of the eCos RTOS. So why would you
start a thread or discussion about eCosPro? That contradicts your
argument as to what can and cannot be discussed in this group, unless
of course you are confused yourself as to what the eCos RTOS is. You
have after all prohibited members of eCosCentric from joining the
group and being able to put forward their own viewpoint on what
eCosPro is, or is not. Is it that they have a viewpoint that differs
from you that bothers you, in which case when can I expected to be
excluded from the group? I am silenced anyway now on the group, so all
I can do is listen. Thank goodness for free speech.

If you do choose to exclude me from the group, let it be known that I
am not nor have I ever been a user of eCosCentric's products, I just
don't care for your position on the exclusion of eCosCentric members
and definitely don't agree with your reasoning. This one-sidedness
smacks of someone who is attempting to discredit or undermine
eCosCentric, which is a bad thing. You should be encouraging
eCosCentric members to join this group and to contribute to it, not
exclude them from it. If anyone is attempting to fragment the eCos
marketplace, or force a fork (assuming it was a negative event), your
actions alone speaks volumes.

LK

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