AMIRIX Systems (Halifax, Nova Scotia) has launched “the Embedded Debian Project” — an effort to create a completely open, multi-vendor embedded Linux software resource based on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. The project has its own website at www.emdebian.org.

Why Debian? Frank Smith, AMIRIX technical lead, says “We looked around at what was there — including Red Hat and other popular distributions — and determined that Debian's GNU/Linux distribution is structurally the most suitable to serve as the basis for an open embedded Linux initiative.” “For example, unlike Red Hat, which has a huge GLIBC, Debian provides far more modularly,” continues Smith. “Debian is a developer's distribution,” adds Smith, “whereas Red Hat and the other mainstream Linux distributions are more oriented toward end users.”

In an effort to highlight the difference between The Embedded Debian Project and commercial embedded Linux distributions, the project's homepage highlights the following excerpt from the Debian FAQ: “Whereas other Linux distributions are developed by individuals, small, closed groups, or commercial vendors, Debian is the only Linux distribution that is being developed cooperatively by many individuals through the Internet, in the same spirit as Linux and other free software.”

Vendor-neutral challenge

In trying to establish The Embedded Debian Project as a truly open, vendor-neutral effort, AMIRIX will face the usual “chicken and egg” challenge of evolving the project from a single-company effort to a multi-vendor activity. Today, AMIRIX is the only company name that appears on the website's single page. Clearly, this needs to change quickly, to counter the tendency to perceive the “.org” as being a thinly veiled “.com” activity. To accomplish this, AMIRIX needs to recruit partners and support from others in the embedded market, including companies with whom it competes.

Richard Vallee, AMIRIX director of business development, emphasizes that his company is strongly committed to making The Embedded Debian Project an open, community-wide effort. To that end, Vallee says AMIRIX will probably “seed” the project with Debian-based embedded Linux implementations and documentation that his company has created while supporting existing customer applications. Vallee adds that he is already having discussions with other system development companies who are thinking about joining the effort.

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The Embedded Debian Project

 
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