Embedded C Compiler On Linux Targeting Motorola 68K

That's aright we realise you have a limited view of the industry :-)

Not true.

Other than your knee-jerk reaction against anything open source, do you have any actual *logic* for a company to support a Solaris tool and not a Linux version? I'm quite happy to accept that Solaris is a more mature system than Linux, and I don't have any evidence to argue against it being more stable or reliable. But there is no doubt that Linux is a lot more popular except in a few *very* specialised areas - so good business sense suggests a company makes products to run on the targets people use.

Or are you suggesting that companies like Altera, Xilinx, Metrowerks, Green Hills, and Wind River (to take a few examples off the top of my head) have all made bad business decisions by choosing to support Linux hosts?

I'm inclined to accept CBFalconer's theory that Altium has bought an existing toolchain and don't (yet) have the in-house expertise to fully support, integrate and modernise it.

In message , David Brown writes

And yours in favour.....

Much more mature.

Yes.... It has vastly more time in critical applications. At one time most of the worlds telephone and Internet system ran on Solaris. I don't mean like Apache but the actual network infrastructure and switches. The MTBF was something like 20 years. We had that in 1995.

This is incorrect. Linux is popular in SOME areas.

Not at all. Very different business model.

I'm not, but then I know some of the people at Tasking.

All other things being equal, I prefer to use open source software because I prefer the flexibility it gives me, and I prefer the open development model for software running on a PC. But I'm not religious about it - I'll use whatever software is most appropriate for the job. So I don't have a problem with a compiler company making software for Solaris, and I understand why they might only target Windows - my question is whether there is any good reason for targeting Solaris and not Linux as well.

At one time, critical applications were run on serious hardware and solid operating systems (Solaris was considered a cheap and cheerful system - people used VMS and various IBM systems when they wanted top of the range reliability). But the sort of Solaris people run on workstations these days is not measurably more reliable than Linux - they are both as stable as their users and the applications run on them. Servers are a different matter, of course, since the applications are much more controlled - both will be as stable and reliable as the hardware they run on.

Linux is vastly more popular than Solaris in almost every area. That's why Sun supports Linux as well as Solaris.

There is a hefty overlap in these markets, is there not?

It makes little difference to the average PC user, but for apps that must conform to a variety of reliability standards, wouldn't you agree that a top-down model of development is best? Take any open- source RTOS for example; there is often the open development version and the certified closed version which has passed various certifications.

In any case, much of the AT&T codebase is present in OpenSolaris and everyone can benefit from its elegance and maturity; also the BSD codebase stands as a more mature and arguably more efficient programming effort than can be found in Linux.

If major open-source projects were run by a core groups of people who have been vetted by certification bodies and who ran the projects using proven project-management methods and who employed standards in merging and releasing submitted works, it would be easier to promote them for general acceptance. The ad-hoc approach taken by most of these doesn't lend itself to reasonable levels of confidence, unless you expect every user to have the skill and time to analyze the codebases of each program they employ and willy-nilly upgrade on every patch or minor release.

In consumer devices this may be of little importance except when considering lost productivity, but in communications infrastructure, and areas impacting national product, security and competitiveness, wouldn't you agree that software security and reliability should be accorded more importance than it has to date? Closed or open-source, isn't it about time that software that impacts vast areas of human endeavor (such as MS Windows on PCs) should be required to pass suites of security and vulnerability testing? I'm not one to support governmental interference in most things, but there will be little impetus to correct the huge problems plaguing the Internet until MS is forced to fix its products to stop proliferations of distributed malware that is choking effective use of e-mail and other services. Can you even _imagine_ such a thing being permitted during the days of regulated telecomm as what has happened to the 'net?

Regards,

Michael

The BSD's have small core groups that handle most of the development, and they certainly have a reputation for being solid, reliable and secure OS's. Linux, along with many open source projects, has a much more open development model. It's not quite ad-hoc, but it is very unlike closed-source development groups. However, the quality of the code and development process is strongly influenced by the various large commercial interests involved - both dedicated companies such as Red Hat, and other mixed companies such as IBM and Sun. Thus a lot of open source software is developed by commercial entities, for commercial entities, but with an open development model.

Absolutely - there is no doubt that in some areas, security and reliability are critical, whereas others need a different balance with things like features, cost, or development time. No one choice of priorities suits all software.

Again, you'll get no arguments from me here.

The main issue with windows and its lack of security, however, is not so much the development model (although it's closed source development model certainly makes it worse) or even lack of testing (windows is tested far more than any other system - although not necessarily tested as well or as completely). Windows has been developed from a single-user, closed environment, non-networked system - all security measures have been tacked on as afterthoughts, and in any conflict between ease-of-use and security, MS have prioritised ease-of-use. Solaris, Linux and BSD, on the other hand, have their design philosophy from unix - where multi-user, networking and security have been fundamental from the start. If windows is ever going to be considered a secure system, then MS are going to have to throw out the guts and start again (or "borrow" a BSD, like Apple did).

Could it just be that people who use Solaris are more willing to pay for software than people who use Linux?

Stephen

It's conceivable, but most engineering professionals are happy to pay for tools (software or hardware) that do a good job and provide value for money. People *do* buy software that runs on Linux - just as people run free (as in "beer" and/or as in "money") software on Windows and Solaris. I don't think many people would expect to get a compiler from Tasking for free just because it runs on Linux.

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Huh? What about Sun's OpenSolaris project then?

It states "The OpenSolaris project is an open source community and a place for collaboration and conversation around OpenSolaris technology."

-- Paul.