It is hard to imagine that it has been about 24 days since Meld launched. If you don’t know what Meld is it is a community for developers building products using embedded Linux. One of the most common questions I’ve had about Meld has been if it is truly for all embedded Linux developers or if it is just some sort of trick “we all talk about MontaVista and nothing but MontaVista” community.

Meld is really about embedded Linux. Take a look at the Wordle below:

That was built off of the “recent discussions” page. Does that put it all into perspective?

It has been a few weeks since Meld launched and I wanted to mention a few updates on it. We’ve had terrific uptake on Meld both in terms of sign-ups and in participation. The conversations have been what I would characterize as appropriately geeky. We’ve also had some great feedback from our Meld community on how we are doing:

Just join today to meld. Thanks for Montavista for hosting this forum. — from izjenie

Thanks for all the great responses guys. There was a lot of information gleamed in this thread. — from ngogineni

Meld is also covering a broad array of topics which I think is critical for those of us who are working with embedded systems. We can’t just specialize in one code base. Meld has hosted discussions on:

• drive to userspace communication
• Beagle board accessories
• booting linux in a multi-processor environment

You’ve also got another chance to learn about how community can help make your embedded Linux project easier at an upcoming webinar on Thursday March 26th. The two hosts for this webinar are Jonathan Corbet (founder of LWN.net… go subscribe now) and Troy Kitch of MV. Should be interesting to see how they discuss “Addressing the top 3 challenges of embedded Linux development with community“. Meld isn’t, of course, the only community out there and there is likely no better guide as to how to work with open source communities than Jonathan. You should read his other publications on this subject such as his “Guide to the Kernel Development Process“.

Yesterday MontaVista unveiled a new community for developers building commercial products using embedded Linux. We call it Meld and it is open to all. If you’ve got an interest in embedded Linux then please come and join in. MontaVista sponsors the community but it is not intended specific to MontaVista products or just for MontaVista customers.

So, why do this?

I’ve been involved with embedded Linux for almost 10 years now. Everything I’ve ever learned I learned from the generous assistance of others. Some knew they were helping me… but most didn’t. The generosity that powers open source and Free software is apparent.  Despite all of this, however, the particular branch of developers building commercial products using embedded Linux is in many ways under-connected.

I’m not an open source project developer… but I can help others who, like me, need an assist here and there to get a job done. Meld is one way to do that. Would you consider joining in to help, too?

Just a few quick FAQish comments:

• Meld isn’t intended to be a replacement or a rival to open source project communities like LKML, kernel.org, or the hundreds of other related projects out there. Our engineers send their patches to the various upstream repos and mailing lists. You should continue to do so as well. If you need help knowing where to go or how to engage we’d love to help you find your way to the right repo… just ask on Meld.
• While MontaVista may be mentioned from time to time on Meld it shouldn’t leave you with the impression Meld is just for MontaVista Linux. That is not our intent. Because neither embedded Linux in general or MontaVista Linux in particular is a mutant fork of the broader world of Linux and open source what we discuss should be generally applicable to many types of Linux which you use to get your jobs done.

If you’ve got questions the comment lines are open.

Brad