The great thing about open source code is the large amount of high quality code that is available and many embedded projects use FOSS code as it really speeds up development time. What is not often taken into account are the licenses for the code. Many companies often simply ignore licenses issues and some even go one step further by obfuscating the code to work around dual license issues or to hide the use of a particular open source library. Even though history shows that few companies get sued due to open source license infringements and release of open source code modified in commercial projects often requires the community involvement, open source licenses should still be taken into consideration as the risk still exists. I’ll give an overview of open source licenses in this blog post, as well as recommendation on how to keep your proprietary code closed. Definition of […]
Embedded MasterClass Conference Schedule in Cambridge, UK
Embeded MasterClass will take place in Cambridge on the 5th of October 2011. This conference will give you the chance to meet with embedded systems engineers from many of the world’s leading vendors and you’ll be able to attend presentations and workshops free of charge. Here’s the presentations’ schedule for the event: Time Stream 1 Stream 2 8.30 – 9.30 Tea/Coffee – Meet the Exhibitors 9.30 – 10.15 1: Leveraging the Performance of Intel® Architectures in low power, fan-less solutions with the latest Intel® Atom™ processor-based platform. Regis Cheval CEng MIET, Intel® Atom™ Platform Application Engineer – Intel 10.30 – 11.15 2: Proving your code quality. Barry Lock – Lauterbach 3: Developing reliable embedded systems using COTS and custom processors. Michael Pont, CEO – TTE Systems 11.15 – 11.45 Coffee and Exhibition 11.45 – 12.30 4: Strategic Research Agenda. Helen Finch – Artemis and Infineon 5: Safely from Conception to […]
First ARM-Based Arduino Board with Atmel SAM3U
Arduino announced Arduino Due board with a 32bit Cortex-M3 ARM processor on their blog before Maker Faire. The SAM3U processor from ATMEL runs at 96MHz with 256Kb of Flash, 50Kb of SRAM, 5 SPI buses, 2 I2C interfaces, 5 UARTS, 16 Analog Inputs at 12Bit resolution and more. Contrary to previous hardware release, they intend to open the process to the community early on and they plan to to be demo the board and give away some boards to a selected group of developers who will be invited to shape the platform while it’s been created. After Maker Faire, a small batch of Developer Edition boards on the Arduino store will be sold to members of the community who want to join the development effort. The final board will be released by the end of 2011. If you can’t wait there are some other Arduino-like projects with Cortex-M3 support based […]
Free Linux Tutorials by the Linux Foundation
Yet another software development tutorial resource this week… The Linux Foundation regularly offers paid tutorials about Linux either online or onsite, but they also have free Linux training videos on their website. There are now 7 free tutorials namely: How to Work with the Linux Community by LWN.net editor and kernel developer Jon Corbet (28:43) . Introduction to Embedded Linux by author Jerry Cooperstein (26:28). Linux Administration 101: Introduction to Vim by author Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier (Length unknown, video not working at the time). Introduction to Git by kernel developer James Bottomley (29:57). Introduction to Btrfs by kernel developer Chris Mason (26:48). Linux Virtualization Using KVM by kernel developer Christoph Hellwig (23:58). Six Tips For Getting Started With Open Source Compliance by Philip Koltun (16:22). I’ve been looking for the presentation slides of these tutorials, but they do not seem to be publicly available. They may also add more free Linux tutorials in the […]
LinuxCon 2011 Presentation: Embedded Systems
The fourth presentation entitled “Embedded Systems” was presented by Tim Harder, developer at OSUOSL (Oregon State University Open Source Lab) on the 16th of August 2011 at LinuxCon 2011. Abstract: This presentation deals with software development for Embedded Systems especially focusing on Linux and open source. It describes current software development challenges such as fast software life cycle and memory footprint issues, lists several open hardware projects (Beagleboard, Pandaboard, Bug Labs, Gumstix), microcontrollers (Arduino and TI MSP430), different operating systems (Android, Meego) and toolchain build tools (Buildroot, Yocto) for embedded systems. It also explains specific challenges to embedded software development such a the numerous number of hardware platforms and software & hardware tools. Finally, it deals with the cross-compilers, emulators (e.g. qemu) and debugging tools (gdb, jtag, serial console, etc…). If you want to download the presentation slides, please go to Embedded Systems and use the download button on top of […]
LinuxCon 2011 Presentation: Hosting Open Source Projects at the OSUOSL
The second presentation entitled “Hosting Open Source Projects at the OSUOSL” was presented by Lance “Ramereth” Albertson, Systems Administrator / Architect at OSUOSL (Oregon State University Open Source Lab) at LinuxCon 2011. Abstract: This presentation describes the hosting infrastructure (data centers, networking etc..) and human resources at OSUOSL, lists some famous customers (linux.org, xiph.org), explains how to request hosting for your open source project, lists the software tools used in the hosting servers and finally deals with funding and the future of open source hosting services at OSUOSL. If you want to download the presentation slides, please go to Hosting Open Source Projects at the OSUOSL and use the download button on top of the Slideshare presentation. If it does not work, you may also download a copy here. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting […]
LinuxCon 2011 Presentation: Fundamentals of Open Source Development
I’ll post links to the LinuxCon 2011 presentations made available via slideshare by Oregon State University Open Source Lab. There will be 5 blog posts with LinuxCon presentations. The first presentation is the “The Fundamentals of Open Source Development” by Leslie Hawthorn, Outreach Manager and Jeff Sheltren, Operations Manager of the OSD Open Source Lab. The actual presentation took place on the 16th of August 2011 at LinuxCon 2011. Abstract: This presentation deals with the definition of open source, which companies, projects and industries use open source software, how to get started, understanding the open source philosophy, communicating with other developers with mailing lists, IRC,…, using revision control system and general guidelines on how to get involved in open source project. If you want to download the presentation slides, please go to Fundamentals of Open Source Development and use the download button on top of the Slideshare presentation. If it […]
What is GENIVI ? A Software Standard for the Automotive Industry
I’ve recently read in the news that a few operating systems had achieved GENIVI compliance. So let’s see what Wikipedia says about the GENIVI Alliance: The GENIVI Alliance was founded on March 2, 2009 by BMW Group, Delphi, GM, Intel, Magneti-Marelli, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Visteon, and Wind River Systems with the goal of establishing a globally competitive, Linux-based operating system, middleware and platform for the automotive in-vehicle infotainment industry. Since then, the alliance has expanded to more than 100 members who are working together to deliver an open and globally consistent software platform based on Linux for use by the whole car industry. So the clear goal here is to have some set of software specifications and standards (Currently GENEVI 1.0) in the automotive industry in order to speed time to market and reduce the cost of developing Infotainment applications. GENIVI comes from a concatenation of Geneva and IVI (In-Vehicle […]