There are two recent articles about the current state of Linux in the embedded world: “It’s raining penguins. Or rather, that’s what many people would like you to think. Linux vendors are laying off scores of workers. Linux publications are folding. So is it doom and gloom time for Linux lovers? PDF here. “The law of supply and demand will face a curious test over the next few years, as embedded Linux vendors search for a way to make engineers pay for an operating system that appeals to users largely because it’s free.” Article at EETimes.
Embedded Linux: Is It Dead Yet?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
so there will be “Embedded Linux is dying” trolls after all?
The Linux market is very resilient because of the way it works.
People will always find a way to make money with Linux. While Linux does not facilitate the creation of big wealthy illegal monopolies it does provide good opportunities to *value added* oriented companies and service providers.
Most markets are hurting these days and Linux is probably no exception, but have no fear, the Penguins will march on triumphantly!
ciao
yc
– Yves is marching with his unbeatable optimism.
Other signs:
Embedded Linux Journal – RIP.
Linuxdevices web is not updating as it was before.
The provocative title, “Embedded Linux: Is it dead yet?”, is taken from the first article, by William Wong. Upon reading the article, you will find that Wong thinks the answer is “no.” He cites several successful companies as examples.
The second article takes the opposite point of view, citing the well publicized goings-on at companies like LynuxWorks.
Wong’s view of the situation is broader and further reaching. But I take issue with both of them. They are focused on the vendors of the tools. Success (or life) is determined by the end users. And the end users of embedded systems are scientists, engineers, and programmers, with a much higher level of technical expertise than, say, desktop users. There are still things that are better done by an embedded system vendor than the end user, but there is not the need for pretty installers and configuration tools.
Rob Campbell
[email protected]
It isn’t the lack of software companies specializing in Embedded Linux that will hurt it, it would be the lack of hardware companies supporting it. All you need is for a few companies to agree on a standard, have a few developers working at each of these hardware companies, and Embedded Linux will get along fine. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to make a software corp. specializing in embedded linux, but all that is really needed is for each of the hardware companies to try and agree on certain standards for application compatability. What else do you really need?
Brandon,
And hardware companies do support it. By the tone of your article, I think you agree, but you didn’t come out and say it.
Rob
And now Embedded Linux is dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
Hardware companies are “OS whores”, they will support anything and everything. Go to any silicon companies that manufacture chips for set-top boxes and point-of-sales systems, most of them support linux, vxworks, lnyx, qnx, psos, winCE, embedded xp, and most importantly embedded DOS as well (many IBM point-of-sales systems currently support DOS 2000). Doesn’t mean a thing — it just means that DOS 2000 or linux will boot on their hardware, doesn’t mean that they care one way or another that you should use it.
Brandon, you are falling into the classic trap like the big bunch of BeOS fans. Like Intel somehow has to buy and rescue Be because just Be was failing financially. Or like TI must rescue RidgeRun (which sells linux distributions for TI cpu/dsp platforms) — RidgeRun went dead last month.
Close your elements Eugenia. The first ‘A’ element isn’t closed and instead a illegal empty A element is introduced.
If you used a validator this wouldn’t happen. If you used a decent spell checker you wouldn’t make so many embarassing typos, and if you checked your facts less of the articles would be nonsense. Just suggestions, take ’em or leave ’em
The difference is that Linux doesn’t need rescuing by hardware vendors. Hardware vendors are falling over themselves to support Linux. That’s the operative difference between Linux and BeOS, etc. Further, Linux has always been portable and there have always been volunteers willing to port it. Consider Yellow Dog Linux running on PowerMacs, which is far from an open system.
Also consider that embedded Linux (or embedded anything) is very broad. Today, it is as likely to mean Linux running on an SBC or industrial PC in a $1,000,000 piece of semiconductor equipment as it doess running on that TI cpu/dsp platform.
Rob Campbell