Going it alone, the relevance of the vendors diminishes

One problem the embedded Linux vendors have is they are still trying to behave in proprietary
ways - and with Linux at the core of your embedded project it becomes increasingly clear the
vendors are trying to lock you into them.

The last embedded project I did with Linux (in fact the first I did) we held the option of
going for vendor supplied kernel open in case we needed harder real-time support. In the end
it turned out we didn't need that so all they had left to offer was fancy (proprietary) GUIs
and distro's which would have tied the project to the vendor if we had used them. Unless you
are going for a heavily configured PC type application rolling your own distro isn't that hard
and it means you have a good understanding of what is in your system and why.

I suspect as more and more RT and embedded patches make it into the mainline kernel
(windriver's 81 patches seeming rather poultry) the value proposition of embedded Linux
companies will look increasingly weak. There is a role for them in the space somewhere but
they need to prove their worth.