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84 NAME="ECOS-OVERVIEW">Chapter 2. <SPAN
92 > is an open source, configurable,
93 portable, and royalty-free embedded real-time operating
94 system. The following text expands on these core aspects that
103 > is provided as an open source
104 runtime system supported by the GNU open source development
105 tools. Developers have full and unfettered access to all
106 aspects of the runtime system. No parts of it are proprietary
107 or hidden, and you are at liberty to examine, add to, and
108 modify the code as you deem necessary. These rights are
109 granted to you and protected by the GNU Public License (GPL).
110 An exception clause has been added to the eCos license which
111 limits the circumstances in which the license applies to other
112 code when used in conjunction with eCos. This exception grants
113 you the right to freely develop and distribute applications
117 >. You are not expected
118 or required to make your embedded applications or any
119 additional components that you develop freely available so
120 long as they are not derived from
124 > code. We of course welcome all
125 contributions back to <SPAN
129 board ports, device drivers and other components, as this
130 helps the growth and development of
134 >, and is of benefit to the
139 HREF="ecos-licensing.html"
141 > for more details.</P
143 >One of the key technological innovations in
147 > is the configuration
148 system. The configuration system allows the application writer
149 to impose their requirements on the run-time components, both
150 in terms of their functionality and implementation, whereas
151 traditionally the operating system has constrained the
152 application's own implementation. Essentially, this enables
156 > developers to create their own
157 application-specific operating system and makes
161 > suitable for a wide range of
162 embedded uses. Configuration also ensures that the resource
167 all unnecessary functionality and features are removed. The
168 configuration system also presents
173 architecture. This provides a standardized mechanism for
174 component suppliers to extend the functionality of
178 > and allows applications to be
179 built from a wide set of optional configurable run-time
180 components. Components can be provided from a variety of
181 sources including: the standard
185 > release; commercial third
186 party developers or open source contributors.</P
188 >The royalty-free nature of <SPAN
191 > means that you can develop and
192 deploy your application using the standard <SPAN
196 incurring any royalty charges. In addition, there are no up-front
197 license charges for the <SPAN
200 > runtime source code and associated
201 tools. We provide, without charge, everything necessary for basic
202 embedded applications development.</P
207 > is designed to be portable to a
208 wide range of target architectures and target platforms including 16,
209 32, and 64 bit architectures, MPUs, MCUs and DSPs. The
213 > kernel, libraries and runtime
214 components are layered on the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), and
215 thus will run on any target once the HAL and relevant device drivers
216 have been ported to the target's processor architecture and
217 board. Currently <SPAN
221 range of different target architectures:
228 >ARM, Intel StrongARM and XScale</P
260 >Motorola 68k/Coldfire</P
272 >including many of the popular variants of these architectures
273 and evaluation boards.</P
278 > has been designed to support
279 applications with real-time requirements, providing features such as
280 full preemptability, minimal interrupt latencies, and all the
281 necessary synchronization primitives, scheduling policies, and
282 interrupt handling mechanisms needed for these type of
286 > also provides all the
287 functionality required for general embedded application support
288 including device drivers, memory management, exception handling, C,
289 math libraries, etc. In addition to runtime support, the
293 > system includes all the tools
294 necessary to develop embedded applications, including
298 > software configuration and build
299 tools, and GNU based compilers, assemblers, linkers, debuggers, and
302 >To get the most out of <SPAN
306 should visit the <SPAN
311 HREF="http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/"
313 >http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/</A
316 >The site is dedicated to the <SPAN
320 developer community and contains a rich set of resources
321 including news, FAQ, online documentation, installation guide,
322 discussion and announcement mailing lists, and runtime and
323 development tools downloads. The site also supports anonymous
324 CVS and WEBCVS access to provide direct access to the latest
333 > is released as open source
334 software because we believe that this is the most effective
335 software development model, and that it provides the greatest
336 benefit to the embedded developer community as a whole. As part
337 of this endeavor, we seek the input and participation of
341 > developers in its continuing
342 evolution. Participation can take many forms including:</P
348 >providing us with feedback on how <SPAN
352 useful to you - by taking part in the ongoing mailing list discussions
353 and by submitting problem reports covering bugs, documentation issues,
354 and missing features</P
358 >contributing bug fixes and enhancement patches</P
362 >contributing new code including device drivers, board
363 ports, libraries, and other runtime components</P
367 >Our long term aim is to make <SPAN
371 rich and ubiquitous standard infrastructure for the development of
372 deeply embedded applications. This will be achieved with the
373 assistance of the <SPAN
376 > developer community
377 cooperating to improve <SPAN
381 would like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to the many
385 > developers who have already
386 contributed feedback, ideas, patches, and code that have augmented and
387 improved this release.</P
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461 > Licence Overview</TD