Looking back at ELC

Posted May 3, 2007 13:06 UTC (Thu) by jabby (guest, #2648) [Link]

I checked out the link. Let's just be clear here that Denx is a software engineering company, NOT a hardware manufacturer. At first glance, they do seem to grok the penguin, though.

Perhaps this company represents a good way forward... I used to work for a UNIX/Linux-centered consulting firm with software engineering and systems administration services. For a lot of companies it just makes sense to let a specialist handle the tasks with which your own personnel aren't primarily concerned. For device manufacturers, perhaps a shift away from the hands-on software creation would help them to focus on device design and production. I'm aware that software is tightly coupled to hardware in the embedded world, but I am also confident that manufacturers and software contractors could work together to produce a viable end result if they both were deriving a mutual benefit.

If that shift can take place with the software engineering being done by a firm who groks freedom and openness, then this may lead to the development of more open gadgets.

The current situation involves pressuring hardware manufacturers to support their devices into the future, which they only see as an additional cost. Instead people could pressure the software engineering firm to support devices that it worked on into the future, which could be seen as potential revenue stream!

Perhaps the software engineering firm could even put terms in their contracts that automatically relicense at least some portion of the software under a free license after a certain length of time?

J