While attending the standards meeting for the Embedded Linux Consortium, it was pointed out to me that MontaVista has recently changed their policy of making the Journeyman CDs available. Those CDs, and ones like them, have brought the GNU cross-compiler to a lot of people. MontaVista has been one of the better companies at providing this to the public in the past.

Now it seems, similar to Red Hat's policy on their GNUPro tools, that you would be required to purchase a maintenance contract with them to receive the software.

This is a sad turn of events for the Embedded Linux community, in my opinion, and if more and more companies continue to provide this type of offering, developers will have a more difficult time in getting the GNU toolchain needed for cross-platform development. I hope they will consider releasing the toolchain, even if they hold back the rest of their source for their subscribers only.

I hope this sad turn of events doesn't prevent the GNU toolchain from getting to the hands of developers in the long run. If more vendors continue down this path, it will only become more difficult for the general public to have a version of the GNU toolchain available to them.

It also makes me wonder if there shouldn't be a common toolchain that is maintained by the Embedded Linux Consortium as a way to get that toolchain into the hands of developers — whoever and whenever they may need it.

—
Alan DuBoff
Software Orchestration, Inc.

 
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