Книга: Embedded Linux development using Eclipse

9.1 Why Buy It?

9.1 Why Buy It?

You may be wondering, why should I pay money for something I can get for free? The most common reason is because open source software vendors have gone through an extensive testing and integration process to make sure that the various software packages from different sources actually do work together as advertised.

The goal of most open source projects is not to create production-ready code, but to push the technology envelope. That’s less true of Eclipse with its annual major release of the platform and a large number of related projects. This is, in turn, accompanied by quarterly maintenance releases. The result is code that is quite stable, and for the most part, bug free.

But of course, embedded software development is more than just an IDE. You also need an operating system, tool chain, boot loader, file system, and so on. The quality and stability of open source implementations of these elements varies widely. The Linux kernel, for example, changes daily. Unless you want to be a kernel developer yourself, trying to keep up with that is futile and counter-productive.

The vendors discussed in this chapter offer complete embedded development tool suites that include, at a minimum, the Eclipse platform with proprietary plug-ins, one or more GNU tool chains for cross development, a Linux kernel, and a boot loader of some form. This doesn’t come cheap, but if your objective is to get a stable, reliable product out the door on time, it’s probably worth it.

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