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Linux Now Top Choice Of Embedded Developers
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at LinuxDevices.com, the latest market research data from Venture Development Corp. shows that Linux is now firmly in first place as the OS of choice for smart gadgets and embedded systems. VDC's latest data indicates that Linux now accounts for 15.5% of embedded projects, beating out Microsoft's WinCE (6%) and XPe (5%), and Wind River's VxWorks (10.3%)."
...it is by invisible hand of the market. Development costs for embedded on Linux are lower, no matter what FUD about GPL are Microsoft vassals posting on Slashdot. Because embedded incarnations of Linux are very consistent with desktop ones.
.net stuff) for PocketPC using WinCE emulator in Windows XP. With a real pain, because running emulator took 98% of desktop CPU doing nothing. It was worth a new computer, two months of her work and many grey hairs to complete the task.
An example from real life:
My girlfriend wrote some custom app (database client frontend +some
I replicated her effort on the identical hardware (HP iPaq, but with Linux flashed in) in three days. The trick I used was a http server running inside iPaq (sic!), calling local python scripts to query remote database and generate html content to local browser.
Guess, from these two implementations, which one is easier and/or cheaper to support?
Can you, Microsoft drones, stuff IIS or any existing COM/DCOM components you already payed for on Win32 into some WinCE device?
There you are, staring at me again.
Just because you don't get charged with doing something illegally as you do it, that doesn't mean that you can't get prosecuted afterwards, if someone feels like going after you.
IANAL, but as I understand it this isn't true if the someone in question told you that they wouldn't ever go after you. It's called "promissory estoppel".
That doesn't totally clear up all of the questions around Linux, though, since Linus' promises not to sue only apply to the code that is his, which is a small percentage of a modern Linux kernel. However, I've read lawyers argue on Groklaw that the facts that (a) others in the community of kernel developers publicly agree with Linus' stance and (b) no kernel developers publicly disagree with Linus' stance, together provide a good argument for promissory estoppel against suits by any kernel developers, since when those developers decided to contribute, they implicitly agreed to the community consensus as to the meaning of the GPL.
Obviously, you don't want to bet your business without advice from a competent and knowledgeable attorney, but I think there is hope that you can writer userspace Linux apps without fear that you're infringing on the header file copyrights.
It's also worth considering the fact that if you did end up getting sued, you'd be in very good company, since *lots* of companies are doing it (which is the point of the article). That doesn't make a suit less painful, but it probably makes it cheaper, since you can join forces with other defendants to share the costs.
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