Who said fragmentation was forever?

The news today says that design automation leader and Nucleus RTOS provider Mentor Graphics is buying embedded Linux tools provider and professional services contractor Embedded Alley for an undisclosed amount.

The most notable aspect of this is that it comes on the heels of Intel’s acquisition of Wind River Systems. Fire sales and mergers are not unusual during flagging economic times, but this is the first time I have been aware of such consolidation happening in the embedded Linux space—not unusual, as that space has only existed for 10 years and this is its first recession.

I would wax poetic on the ramifications of this merger, but Bill Weinberg has already done so. (Hi Bill!)

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to concentrate on helping to get MontaVista Linux 6 out the door.

No one is more social than software developers, right? We invented the internet in order to converse, interact, fan flamewars, etc. Sometime in this decade, the international marketing machine seems to have gotten hold of the tubes and sort of taken over, diluting our technical conversations with adware and l33tsp33k. The original intent of the Internet is being drowned by its popularity.

However, there still exist some corners of the tubes where actual technical conversation still happens. These are a few of those corners that cater to those of us with a taste for embedded Linux. Please feel free to add to this list in the comments below.

Social media:

These include communities dedicated to embedded Linux, wikis, etc. Blogs are listed in a separate section.

• Meld has been called the “Facebook of embedded Linux”, and not just by me. Conversations tend to get very technical. Stop in and join the discussion groups. [full disclosure: MontaVista sponsors Meld, and I am a Meld admin]
• Elinux.org is an excellent wiki maintained by CELF. The wiki contains a huge amount of embedded Linux information and is growing all the time.
• Embedded group on Linux.com, recently absorbed by the Linux Foundation.

Blogs:

Do blogs count as social media? Almost certainly. Here are just a few that discuss embedded Linux:

• Jeff’s Open Source Resource [full disclosure - that’s me]
• Kate Alhola’s Maemo blog
• Embedded Linux Interfacing, serving the Embedded Linux community since 2001

Embedded Linux appearances in other social media:

Our presence is small, but loud.

• Twitter supports many fascinating twigs and branches, some of which, like Meld and MontaVista, relate to embedded Linux.
• Google Groups hosts many groups related to specific projects, e.g. the Beagle Board discussion group.
• LinkedIn Embedded Linux group.
• Facebook Embedded Linux group. Be sure to also visit MontaVista’s page.
• MontaVista on YouTube. There are more embedded Linux videos there as well, just search on “embedded linux”.