An article at SD Times claims that Metrowerks' $6,240 per seat Platform Creation Suite 3.0 de-mystifies the black art of creating board support packages (BSPs). The article quotes David Beal, Metrowerks director of embedded Linux tools, who describes BSP creation as a four-step process.

Kernel and GNU import are the first, and optional steps, says Beal, wherein developers can replace tools in an off-the-shelf BSP with versions from another distribution or customized ports of their own.

Next comes a Skeleton Deploy: “Once the software has been built, you have to move it to the target somehow. [Deployment] is board-specific because some have compact flash, others have networking or serial ports. Skeleton is a generic [environment] to support boards we have never seen before,” the SD Times quotes Beal as saying. In the case where a Metrowerks BSP is used for supported hardware, the BSP is simply loaded through a GUI, obviating the Skeleton Deploy stage, according to the article.

The last step involves using an “Export Wizard” to build an ISO image on CD that can be re-distributed on a royalty free basis.

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