Embedded fragmentation? A worry?? [LWN.net]

Embedded fragmentation? A worry??

Posted Feb 20, 2003 15:51 UTC (Thu) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054)
Parent article: The Embedded Linux Consortium Platform Specification

While it's certainly nice to see signs of cohesion in any segment of the embedded world, I had to laugh at the comment

Embedded Linux, in particular, has been subject to the sort of fragmentation that creates worry among technology pundits and corporate managers

In my time in the embedded world (hint: I subscribed to Embedded Systems Programming from issue 1, when you had to pay for it) the words embedded and fragmented have always been synonymous.

Let's look at their 2002 buyer's guide: the heading `Real-Time Operating Systems / Kernels / Executives' runs from pages 28 to 51, inclusive, and contains only two (admittedly, full-page) ads. I don't feel like counting, but at a conservative six listings per double-page spread, you get to choose from some 66 products that want you to think you can run your app on them + bare metal. And that leaves out the (tens of?) thousands of roll-your-own practitioners. Fragmented? Can you say ``Smashed to flinders''?

It's great to see some standardization coming in---the low cost of high performance these days will allow us to throw plenty of x86-compatibles into the fray without a qualm, simply because you can boot it on day two, and be productive on day three. But there's a reason for the seemingly-insane variety of embedded offerings: the same variety in products, vastly larger than Compaq or Dell could ever dream of. I guarantee my USD 25 toaster has a microprocessor, but it ain't an x86. In the majority of embedded products, they're planning to sell so many widgets that saving ten cents each trumps a couple weeks of an engineer's time. The only people worried by embedded fragmentation are those outside the industry.

I predict in five years (I'm being real cautious here) we'll have dozens of little Linuces, all different, all meeting one of the then-current standards.

Best wishes,
Max Hyre

P.S.: I fear we may not have ESP around much longer, at least in print form; my latest issue was forty pages, down from around ninety mid-last-year, and well over a hundred in years past.

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