Red Hat And Lineo Respond To MS Embedded Linux FUD

jeffy124 writes: "Red Hat and Lineo, the major spearheads of Embedded Linux, have said that Microsoft's recent white paper comparing Linux and Windows XP embedded is full of inaccuracies, false facts, and overall distorts the value of Linux in general. Lineo has gone as far to say it flat out lies about Linux. ZDNet has Lineo's response, Red Hat comments, and a summary article." Updated by HeUnique: LynuxWorks has also wrote a response (only this one is a bit more detailed).

Comments

Yeah, that whole thing was a load of crap...

[Greyfox]

I did some work on an embedded Linux device and as near as I can tell, development costs are about comparable to the other embedded projects the company was doing (Though they did choose a bunch of Windows-programming idiots who didn't even know what processes were for the development effort, so I and the kernel hacker were the only two Linux guys on the proejct, but that's another story.) Factor in the savings in royalties and you've saved the company a pretty penny. Most people don't realize it but most of the time you also have to license a BIOS if you're working with an X86 solution (Dunno about other platforms.) We were working on rolling our own to avoid that expense as well. A few dollars does make a HUGE difference over the course of a million units.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any figures on how much the other embedded OSes cost per system? I assume they'd have to be rough figures as I expect the various companies negotiate the exact price based on units to be licensed. I'd be curious.

Really the biggest issue we ran in to was with releasing our kernel mods back to the community but I believe we decided to do so. I and my kernel-hacking co-worker were lobbying to do so, and there were really no reasons not to. The interface and higher level software was not going to be released, which is just as well as I'm sure it would have been as dangerous as Monty Python's "Funniest Joke in the World." (A joke so funny you die laughing, for those who missed the skit.)