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Technology Stocks : Wind River going up, up, up!
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To: Anthony Tran who wrote (6444)10/5/1999 3:22:00 PM
From: Prognosticator   of 10309
 
Anthony: thanks for your post: here is my take on Tawei Liao's comments.

1. Linux kernel is a monolith architecture, like IOS right now. It comes in one big chunk. Any changes means that you have to reboot the whole system. That's not good.

The same is true of VxWorks. You have to build the kernel as a monolith (for example to include/exclude NFS etc). Linux can dynamically load and unload applications, as can VxWorks, so I don't think this is a valid point.

2. Support for a whole range of microprocessors. Companies like RedHat sells customer service, but they don't do heavy duty development. You need to have a lot of heavy duty development in order to do the BSP (board support packages) for a lot of different processors.

This is a very valid point. However, somebody will see this as an opportunity for a new startup, then BAM! instant $1B valuation. Hmm. Maybe I should..., no if I thought of it, somebody is already doing it.

3. Suppose a company does develop a lot of support and also come up with a good debugging environment. Do you think that company will still give it out for free? I don't think so. The appeal of free linux is gone once you start adding a lot of features.

The 'free' nature of Linux is often confusing: 'free' refers more to the ownership of intellectual property, rather than charging for delivery. While Linux can be obtained for no cost, a company could certainly charge for the BSP's and tools to help developers. And probably make a lot of money. Hey, I just described Wind River (but of course, they have no position on Embedded Linux).

P.
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