From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 18667 invoked by alias); 28 Mar 2013 14:40:51 -0000 Mailing-List: contact ecos-discuss-help@ecos.sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: ecos-discuss-owner@ecos.sourceware.org Received: (qmail 18650 invoked by uid 89); 28 Mar 2013 14:40:43 -0000 X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,FREEMAIL_ENVFROM_END_DIGIT,FREEMAIL_FROM,KHOP_RCVD_TRUST,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW,RCVD_IN_HOSTKARMA_YE autolearn=ham version=3.3.1 Received: from mail-ee0-f67.google.com (HELO mail-ee0-f67.google.com) (74.125.83.67) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.84/v0.84-167-ge50287c) with ESMTP; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:40:39 +0000 Received: by mail-ee0-f67.google.com with SMTP id l10so968461eei.2 for ; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:40:37 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.14.109.71 with SMTP id r47mr40879704eeg.25.1364481637461; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:40:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.223.89.7 with HTTP; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:40:37 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:40:00 -0000 Message-ID: From: Liam Knight To: ecos discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: [ECOS] Is eCosPro a fork of eCos? X-SW-Source: 2013-03/txt/msg00062.txt.bz2 Apologies for the wide distribution. Unfortunately the owner of the eCos group on the social media website I belong to does not believe in free speech and has censured my responses to the group. It appears that if you express an opinion that differs to his, he would classify it as off topic or abusive, as so moderate and censure it. Fortunately we live in a world of free speech so I would appreciate that members of this particular group on this list point the group to this email which shoould get archived somewhere here: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss/2013-03/ As I am bringing in a new audience, some backgroup. The owner of the group is John Dallaway, an eCos maintainer, and the group is closed to anyone who works for eCosCentric (stand up now anyone else who was refused entry to the group and be counted). John started a discussion topic about eCosCentric and whether eCosPro is a fork of eCos, which he maintains it is, and claims to have verified this with eCosCentric. He has also excluded members of eCosCentric from joining the group because he maintains that the group is for discussion about eCos and not eCosPro, and thereby insists that the members of eCosCentric are unable to contribute to the group on topics regarding eCos. Does anyone spot the first inconsistency? John maintains the group is for discussion about eCos and not eCosPro, but yet starts a conversation about eCosCentric and eCosPro. Further, he makes a number of statements and claims, either inferred or direct, about both but prohibits eCosCentric from being able to respond. In addition, the moment somebody expresses an opinion that differs from his in support of eCosCentric, he censors them. China, North Korea, here I come... So sadly I have to resort to media where free speech is allowed, which is why I am making my response to him public and on this list. I believe that other members of the list need to know the kind of person he really is, as well as me of course (2x divorced, no kids, described as volatile). The remainder of this email is directed towards John, but intended for public scrutiny, comment and opinion. John, first of all I do not take kindly to being bullied, threatened or censured. I was brought up in England where we have something called "free speech", which you do not appear to be familiar with. >From your response to me on the group you appear to be saying you have excluded members of eCosCentric from membership of the group because eCosCentric have forked eCos and because they have a business model and marketing position that you disagree with. eCosCentric have been firm supporters of the free version, contributing BSPs, functionality, toolchains, fixes etc and are clearly still users of the eCos RTOS. They continue to support it (by your own admission through advice-line support) and contribute to it, as well as continue to market it along with eCosPro as a commercial alternative. Given this, I don't believe that having a commercial alternative that is based on eCos can have any bearing on whether their members are entitled to join this group. Whether eCosCentric have forked eCos or not may in dispute, but lets say for argument's sake they have forked. They are still users of the eCos RTOS because surely at the point that eCosCentric forked eCos it was still eCos? If not, at what point did the eCos source code no longer become eCos? Does your definition of what the eCos RTOS is move along with the tip of the CVS source tree, or is it the moment you build on it without your work going into the main source tree? Or is it the moment you start charging for your extensions or implementation or the use of them? Or charging others to provide commercial support? Surely all this means their members are in a position to contribute to the group, whatever narrow definition you declare the eCos RTOS to be? Or does your definition of what entitles someone someone to join the group conveniently move so that you can exclude members of eCosCentric from it? In addition, you are insinuating that the forking of eCos is a bad thing. Why? I recently read in the British press that forking of a free project is often seen as the highest form of flattery in the free open source world. If it's a bad thing, why have your forked the eCos configuration tool in your own product within Eclipse? Or does the configuration tool that resides in the eCos CVS repository and the libcdl technology on which the eCos runtime system depends for compilation not come into your definition of what is or is not part of the eCos RTOS? You also have implied that eCosCentric have forked eCos because there are alternative implementations of various things (HALs, packages, etc) in both eCosPro and eCos. That implies that the features you pointed out existed in eCos before eCosCentric developed their implementation which is not the case for at least a couple of the features. For example, their libstdc++ support was developed in 2003, uSTL was only recently contributed. I don't see that any addition to eCos that is not contributed to the original project constitutes a fork. A fork implies a parting of ways between eCosCentric and the other maintainers, yet eCosCentric are still an active part of the eCos community and both contribute to and support it. Also, you infer from your last response to me on the group that you have spoken to eCosCentric and that they confirm your position that eCosPro is a fork is correct. I too spoke with the CEO of eCosCentric last night as your statement that you have discussed eCosCentric's business model and market positioning made no sense to me. While he would not be drawn on the apparent sour relationship between eCosCentric and yourself, he did verify to me their position which is considerably different from your inference. I can only assume from both his refusal to be drawn further on you and your comments that your departure from eCosCentric was not amicable. If this is true, and that is the real reason for your exclusion of members of eCosCentric from the group, I would find your behaviour unprofessional and distasteful and question your impartiality as both owner of the group and eCos maintainer, as well as your effectiveness as eCos maintainer. I am also personally very uncomfortable about making statements or comments about any person or company without giving them recourse to back up my comments, respond or defend their position. So while the eCosCentric CEO has so far refused to comment on the dispute to me personally, I hope that he now has a platform to refute or support your claims and uses it!!! IMHO this group is poorer without their input and eCos would be worse off without their support and contributions. >From your definition and response of what entitles anyone to belong to the group, I believe you would have to exclude EVERYONE in the group who has: 1) developed a product using eCos (one assumes they are making money on their product), or 2) modified or built on eCos and not had their modifications or additions put into the main source tree, yourself included 3) used eCosPro. Or will your definition of what entitles anyone membership to the group again simply morph into whatever argument you can use to exclude members of eCosCentric from it? My point is that members of eCosCentric are just as able to contribute to the group just as any other user of the eCos RTOS, probably more so given that they employ the original architect of eCos. Which raises another question. This thread. By your own "standard" you have stated the group is for users of the eCos RTOS. So why would you start a thread or discussion about eCosPro? That contradicts your argument as to what can and cannot be discussed in this group, unless of course you are confused yourself as to what the eCos RTOS is. You have after all prohibited members of eCosCentric from joining the group and being able to put forward their own viewpoint on what eCosPro is, or is not. Is it that they have a viewpoint that differs from you that bothers you, in which case when can I expected to be excluded from the group? I am silenced anyway now on the group, so all I can do is listen. Thank goodness for free speech. If you do choose to exclude me from the group, let it be known that I am not nor have I ever been a user of eCosCentric's products, I just don't care for your position on the exclusion of eCosCentric members and definitely don't agree with your reasoning. This one-sidedness smacks of someone who is attempting to discredit or undermine eCosCentric, which is a bad thing. You should be encouraging eCosCentric members to join this group and to contribute to it, not exclude them from it. If anyone is attempting to fragment the eCos marketplace, or force a fork (assuming it was a negative event), your actions alone speaks volumes. LK -- Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss