Many in the RTOS industry believe that freedom from royalties is the best way to develop applications for embedded devices. But is free software really free?

Edward J. Correia, Editor of SD Times, explores some opposing viewpoints in this interview with representatives of Red Hat, Wind River, QNX, Microware, and Green Hills. Correia writes . . .

“You're designing an embedded device. When summing up the software costs, it's hard to resist the lure of free components offered by the open-source community; putting zeros next to the real-time operating system (RTOS) and device drivers will surely help the bottom line of any project.”

“But is open-source software really free? And is it reliable? Some say that if your company decides to use software released under the Free Software Foundation's General Public License (GPL), you may be in for more than you bargained for. And maintaining your own RTOS? You may as well sign a pact with Satan.”

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This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.