Dear Xilinx,
Would you **please** consider investing money/effort into an eCos port to Microblaze?
Altera has sponsored a company to do an eCos port to NIOS-II and I'm seriously considering using it. I realize that uCLinux for Xilinx exists, but it is still being developed and has footprint/requirements larger than many applications need.
Please take into consideration the fact that sometimes a working proof of concept is required before others within a company are willing to fully support or fund a project. Something like eCos would allow me to do my proof of concept, on my own time, and have the basis for a real product when I'm done.
The cost of entry is only my time and the development hardware we have already purchased -- there are nothing else my company would need to spend. An approach like this is much easier to sell than asking for money up-front.
And before someone points out it would be faster (in terms of time-to-market) using an existing a closed-source RTOS that's been ported to Microblaze, for some of the projects I or my company want to do, we're trying to keep them open-source so we can build a community around it and allow users to customize and add their own features. Most RTOS vendors have strict policies on source code and/or licensing.
Finally, consider that an eCos Microblaze question has come up multiple times on the eCos mailing lists, even very recently. I am therefore, not the only person who would want this.
Sincerely, Ram.