[ECOS] Re: is eCos dying?

[Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>]

On 2015-10-04, Stanislav Meduna <stano@meduna.org> wrote:
> On 03.10.2015 10:15, John Dallaway wrote:
>
> Hi Abhishek,
>
>>> Would it be worth to start learning on eCos or is it dying ?I have seen
>>> enough activity in 2007 but now it is minimal this year.
>>> Is it getting outdated?
>
>> eCos is not dying, but I would have to agree that there has been less
>> activity on the mailing lists recently.
>
> Well the last commit in http://hg-pub.ecoscentric.com/ecos/ is 5 months
> old one-liner, followed by a 12 and 15 month old ones, so this is not only
> on mailing lists. I'd say that while it is still a good OS with clean
> and easy to use architecture, the open source version basically died
> and there are parts hopelessly outdated (TCP/IP from ~2000 if
> I remember correctly etc).
>
> I cannot comment on eCosPro, but then you are in a price segment
> where there are more alternatives to explore.
>
>>> should i begin to work using eCos or should i look for other alternative?
>
> It depends on what your short and long-term plans are. Definitely
> also take a look at FreeRTOS.

I also am commenting strictly on the open-source version, not on
eCosPro...

I've been using eCos since the Cygnus days (around 1999 or so).  I've
been pretty happy with it, but the open-source version is getting
pretty stale. I'm particularly worried about the ancient FreeBSD
network stack -- but it still seems to be working OK, knock on wood. 

I'm also concerned about what's going to happen when my customers
starting actually using IPv6 in anger.

Getting the two BSD networks stacks integrated into eCos was an
impressive feat of engineering. But, a square peg in a round hole is
still a square peg in a round hole no matter how much you admire the
craftsmanship of the shims.

I've often wished I had a few spare weeks to experiment with LWIP.  I
have the impression that it's a better fit for eCos and would be
easier to keep current.

If I were starting from scratch these days, I'd probably look first at
something other than eCos. I've never needed the full-up POSIX or
uItron adaptation layers, so for my smaller projects I'd probably lean
towards something a little lighter-weight like uCos-II/III (not free)
or XMK (which also seems to be languishing a bit).  FreeRTOS would
also be at the top of my list of candidates -- even though I find the
web-site a bit off-putting.  I'd probably use Linux for bigger, more
complex projects that are "not quite as real-time" and could benefit
from the Unix memory protection and process models.

-- 
Grant


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