Rant No Defense for Linux

[Charles Steinkuehler]

djgoku wrote:

> Interesting Article. http://www.designnews.com/article/CA435615.html

Old news to someone who follows the embedded world, note the source:
   Dan O'Dowd, CEO, Green Hills Software Inc.

...for more in the same vein, read the various linux white-papers going 
back to April on the GHS website:
http://www.ghs.com/news/index.html

Green Hills sells embedded Real-time Operating Systems (RTOS) and 
cross-platform development tools (ie: stuff that lets you compile code 
for your embedded widget with 16K of memory on a more powerful desktop 
system).  The combination of linux being ported to *LOTS* of new 
architectures (check out the architecutres supported in the 2.6 kernel, 
and see how many you've actually heard of) and the ever easier task of 
setting up a GCC cross-compile environment is starting to eat these 
guy's lunch (and the lunch of many of their brethren).

Is linux ready for true RTOS duties, where if anything goes wrong 
someone dies?  I don't think so, although it's headed in the right 
direction.  For those who don't need quite the aircraft autopilot or 
medical X-Ray level of guaranteed quality (and the stacks of paper 
certification that go along with it), linux is an ever more popular 
choice, and it's turning the formerly stable embedded software industry 
on it's ear.

Green Hills has been making valid technical arguments against the use of 
linux in the high-end of the embedded market, but doing so in such a way 
as to try and make anyone think twice about using linux, even if you 
don't need to meet the various technical hurdles brought up by GHS and 
just want something to do a good job of running something like your palm 
pilot or wireless access point.  It strikes me as the sort of marketing 
campaign Microsoft might do against linux if they actually had any 
ethics and suddenly decided to used facts in their FUD. :-)

-- 
Charles Steinkuehler
charles at steinkuehler.net