The nature of Linux, and the open source community in general, is an interesting dichotomy. In order to be good citizens of the community, commercial Linux companies such as MontaVista and others must contribute back to the community so that innovation continues.

There are no set rules when it comes to open source, and each company has to decide how they relate to the community. From the beginning, we at MontaVista made the decision that we’d basically pour gas on the fire and be very active good citizens in the community, with the notion that the faster we make Linux embeddable, the more of a divot we take out of proprietary systems. Even though being very visible and active contributors might arguably empower our competitors, that’s the way it is. The bigger picture of eliminating the proprietary systems has always been more important.

However, in the embedded space, not all commercial Linux companies are created equal. Not all commercial embedded Linux companies value giving back to the open source community, or are even capable of making significant contributions for that matter.

If you’re trying to make a decision on who to trust when it comes to embedded Linux, follow the copyrights. The companies that are contributing back to the kernel in significant ways are the ones that have a true understanding of how to make Linux work for your device.

If you never touch the code, it’s obvious that you don’t have a lot of expertise in it. That doesn’t even factor in the fact that the software that you download from kernel.org is unfinished software, and if you don’t touch it and if your copyrights aren’t all over it, it’s full of bugs, it’s unstable, and it’s lacking in some technical areas that you have to add.

Commercial companies may leech off of the system and claim they are giving you “pristine” code. All that means is that they know how to download software, but what value are they adding? Anyone can download the stuff. So where is their expertise? What’s visible?

Just a little something to think about as you look at your options.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 8:25 am and is filed under Embedded Linux.