Red Hat’s eCos: Going, Going, Gone

Red Hat’s eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Alex Schuilenburg]

Hi Eddie

I just read your article
   http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm
and was quite astounded by one of the facts you claim - "1998 – Gary 
Thomas develops the Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos)."

This is *totally* incorrect.  The original architect of eCos was Nick 
Garnett who developed eCos in 1996, along with the original team of Bart 
Veer and Paul Beskeen.  The first release of eCos was in 1997, at least 
a year before Gary Thomas joined Cygnus in 1998.  Gary was approximately 
the 6th member to join the eCos team around the time Cygnus first 
released eCos publically.

Gary (CC'ed) remains to be an eCos maintainer (all eCos maintainers 
CC'ed) and still contributes to eCos.  I am sure Gary will confirm 
everything above.

There are also further inaccuracies within your article.  eCosCentric 
was founded by the entire Red Hat eCos team (of which I was manager) 
that left Red Hat.  This was not 4 but 9 people, including Gary Thomas 
who later left eCosCentric at the end of 2002 for his own personal reasons.

In addition, you have also mis-quoted me which I find surprising since 
you mentioned at the end of our call that you had taped our 
conversation.  Of note I said I could not comment on whether Red Hat 
were looking for buyers for eCos, but could comment that I knew a few 
companies who were interested in purchasing eCos from Red Hat since some 
of those companies had also approached the former Red Hat eCos staff.

My last comment was also taken out of context since I was referring to 
the alternative for eCos of setting up a NFP and generating revenue 
through the sales of eCos licenses that could be ploughed back into the 
community.  This is not an option with the FSF route.

I trust that you will correct these errors in your article or at least 
print an addendum.

Regards
-- Alex

Managing Director / CEO                           eCosCentric Limited
http://www.ecoscentric.com/              The eCos and RedBoot experts

Visit us at Embedded World, Nürnberg          17-19 Feb, Stand 12-449
and at Embedded Systems Conference, SFO,  30 Mar - 1 Apr, Booth #2527

Re: Red Hat’s eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Jonathan Larmour]

Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> Hi Eddie
> 
> I just read your article
>   http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm
> and was quite astounded by one of the facts you claim - "1998 – Gary 
> Thomas develops the Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos)."
> 
> This is *totally* incorrect.  The original architect of eCos was Nick 
> Garnett who developed eCos in 1996, along with the original team of Bart 
> Veer and Paul Beskeen.  The first release of eCos was in 1997, at least 
> a year before Gary Thomas joined Cygnus in 1998.  Gary was approximately 
> the 6th member to join the eCos team around the time Cygnus first 
> released eCos publically.

 From my recollection, at least Paul, Nick, Bart, Hugo, Stu G, Rob S, Chris 
Provenzano, Daniel Neades, John Dallaway, myself, Chris Tarpy, Jesper, 
Simon Fitzmaurice, Mark Galassi and arguably Gary O, Liz and Marc were 
members of the eCos team before Gary joined. That makes Gary between the 
14th and 17th eCos team member. It's okay Alex, it was before your time too 
:-).

In that context, you can understand the surprise at such a statement. 
Perhaps there was some misunderstanding given Gary's much longer history 
and experience with PPC Linux as its main original developer?

> Gary (CC'ed) remains to be an eCos maintainer (all eCos maintainers 
> CC'ed) and still contributes to eCos.  I am sure Gary will confirm 
> everything above.
> 
> There are also further inaccuracies within your article.

Wearing my maintainer's hat and personal hat (i.e. not eCosCentric at all), 
I wish to add more:

- Red Hat have not transferred ownership of eCos to the FSF. Red Hat have 
at this stage only issued a press release stating they intend to do so at 
some point in the future. The eCos maintainers have heard nothing more from 
Red Hat, who are not replying to my mails on the subject, and no copyright 
transfer has taken place, nor do we know of any plans or schedule for it 
taking place. Most of the original eCos code is still copyright Red Hat 
(and code from 2002 is now additionally copyrighted by eCos maintainers).

- eCos 1.3.1, the final official release from Red Hat, was released in 
March 2000, not 2001.

- Red Hat did ramp down eCos sales and development in February and made 
Gary Thomas redundant. Most other staff were not made redundant at the same 
time, although it had been anticipated. I was working in Red Hat on eCos 
and being paid by Red Hat until August 2002, and other eCos team members 
were similarly employed by Red Hat up till then as well, doing eCos work. 
Mark Salter, also an eCos team member, is still a Red Hat employee, and is 
an eCos maintainer.

Also, we were made redundant at that point, and were not fired. Perhaps UK 
employment law differs from the US in this respect, but in the UK an 
employee is generally "fired" for misconduct, negligence, etc. and thus 
saying I was fired is a very negative thing to say in the UK. I would 
recommend a clarification that we were not fired, but laid off/made redundant.

- eCos 2.0 was released in May 2003, not September.

- In connection with Michael Tiemann's quote that the 17 month delay 
between its decision to cease eCos development and donate the code was due 
to "a careful effort to remove any parts that were inappropriate for open 
source. " I wish to clarify that no such previously unreleased code has 
been released by Red Hat since the eCos team's departure, and no code in 
eCos is being removed. All code released by the eCos team prior to the 
split with Red Hat was, is and remains open source under the eCos license.

I feel this must be clarified as Michael's statement implies that the code 
that people have been using since 2002 up to today has been in some sort of 
uncertain legal state, and some of it may be removed. This is untrue and 
such a perception could be damaging to the eCos project.

I hope that a correction with all the above items (and Alex's) will go some 
way to clearing up the inevitable confusion resulting from this article. I 
welcome any future articles on eCos, and happily offer my services to 
review a final draft by e-mail as factual inaccuracies obviously don't do 
anyone any favours. Feel free to mail me.

Thanks,

Jifl
-- 
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine

Re: Red Hat’s eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Alex Schuilenburg]

Jonathan Larmour wrote:

> Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> 
>> Hi Eddie
>>
>> I just read your article
>>   http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm
>> and was quite astounded by one of the facts you claim - "1998 – Gary 
>> Thomas develops the Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos)."
>>
>> This is *totally* incorrect.  The original architect of eCos was Nick 
>> Garnett who developed eCos in 1996, along with the original team of 
>> Bart Veer and Paul Beskeen.  The first release of eCos was in 1997, at 
>> least a year before Gary Thomas joined Cygnus in 1998.  Gary was 
>> approximately the 6th member to join the eCos team around the time 
>> Cygnus first released eCos publically.
> 
> 
>  From my recollection, at least Paul, Nick, Bart, Hugo, Stu G, Rob S, 
> Chris Provenzano, Daniel Neades, John Dallaway, myself, Chris Tarpy, 
> Jesper, Simon Fitzmaurice, Mark Galassi and arguably Gary O, Liz and 
> Marc were members of the eCos team before Gary joined. That makes Gary 
> between the 14th and 17th eCos team member. It's okay Alex, it was 
> before your time too :-).
> 
> In that context, you can understand the surprise at such a statement. 
> Perhaps there was some misunderstanding given Gary's much longer history 
> and experience with PPC Linux as its main original developer?

Or RedBoot, since Gary did write that, although he wrote that while at 
Red Hat during 2000/2001 approx.  Gary could give more exact times for 
the birth of RedBoot when he confirms the inaccuracies of the article.


[...]
> 
> - eCos 2.0 was released in May 2003, not September.

eCosPro 2.0 was released in September though.  Maybe that is what was 
confused.


> 
> - In connection with Michael Tiemann's quote that the 17 month delay 
> between its decision to cease eCos development and donate the code was 
> due to "a careful effort to remove any parts that were inappropriate for 
> open source. " I wish to clarify that no such previously unreleased code 
> has been released by Red Hat since the eCos team's departure, and no 
> code in eCos is being removed. All code released by the eCos team prior 
> to the split with Red Hat was, is and remains open source under the eCos 
> license.
> 
> I feel this must be clarified as Michael's statement implies that the 
> code that people have been using since 2002 up to today has been in some 
> sort of uncertain legal state, and some of it may be removed. This is 
> untrue and such a perception could be damaging to the eCos project.

My statement regarding the delay are also inaccurate.  We knew of 
potential buyers for eCos during 2002 but none during 2003 when the 
maintainers started looking for a NFP home for eCos.  I certainly did 
not say nor imply the delay in the release of the code to the FSF was 
because Red Hat were looking for buyers.

Red Hat's contribution of eCos to the FSF is the next best solution that 
could have happened for eCos IMHO.  The best solution would have been a 
NFP organisation which could sell eCos licenses and plough any profits 
back into the development of eCos through the funding of open eCos projects.


> 
> I hope that a correction with all the above items (and Alex's) will go 
> some way to clearing up the inevitable confusion resulting from this 
> article. I welcome any future articles on eCos, and happily offer my 
> services to review a final draft by e-mail as factual inaccuracies 
> obviously don't do anyone any favours. Feel free to mail me.

I will note also that after a long conversation with Eddie I did ask 
whether I would be able to read/comment/proof the article before it was 
to be published to ensure all the details and facts were correct.  I was 
told then that this is not SD Times policy.  Judging from the amount of 
inaccuracies and misquotes in this particular article, I would strongly 
suggest SD Times revise it's policy.  I therefore would also welcome a 
correction of the article by SD Times.

-- Alex
Managing Director / CEO                           eCosCentric Limited
http://www.ecoscentric.com/              The eCos and RedBoot experts
Visit us at Embedded World, Nürnberg          17-19 Feb, Stand 12-449
and at Embedded Systems Conference, SFO,  30 Mar - 1 Apr, Booth #2527



> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jifl

Re: Red Hat’s eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Gary Thomas]

First of all, I want it to be known that I was not consulted in any way
about this article.  As has been mentioned many times, I was just a 
player in the creation of eCos, and was most certainly a late one at
that.

On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 05:53, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> Jonathan Larmour wrote:
> 
> > Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> > 
> >> Hi Eddie
> >>
> >> I just read your article
> >>   http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm
> >> and was quite astounded by one of the facts you claim - "1998 В– Gary 
> >> Thomas develops the Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos)."
> >>
> >> This is *totally* incorrect.  The original architect of eCos was Nick 
> >> Garnett who developed eCos in 1996, along with the original team of 
> >> Bart Veer and Paul Beskeen.  The first release of eCos was in 1997, at 
> >> least a year before Gary Thomas joined Cygnus in 1998.  Gary was 
> >> approximately the 6th member to join the eCos team around the time 
> >> Cygnus first released eCos publically.
> > 
> > 
> >  From my recollection, at least Paul, Nick, Bart, Hugo, Stu G, Rob S, 
> > Chris Provenzano, Daniel Neades, John Dallaway, myself, Chris Tarpy, 
> > Jesper, Simon Fitzmaurice, Mark Galassi and arguably Gary O, Liz and 
> > Marc were members of the eCos team before Gary joined. That makes Gary 
> > between the 14th and 17th eCos team member. It's okay Alex, it was 
> > before your time too :-).
> > 
> > In that context, you can understand the surprise at such a statement. 
> > Perhaps there was some misunderstanding given Gary's much longer history 
> > and experience with PPC Linux as its main original developer?
> 
> Or RedBoot, since Gary did write that, although he wrote that while at 
> Red Hat during 2000/2001 approx.  Gary could give more exact times for 
> the birth of RedBoot when he confirms the inaccuracies of the article.
> 

RedBoot grew out of internal needs and customer demands starting in late
1999.

Another major inaccuracy in the timeline [sidebar] from the article is
that eCosCentric was not formed until mid to late summer of 2002, well
after I had been laid off and the rest [the contingent in the UK] had
been provided notice of redundancy.

I, too, am appalled at the level of error in this article and fervently
appeal to the author and/or publisher to provide corrections to the
public.

-- 
Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>
MLB Associates

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Gary Thomas]

On Tue, 2004-02-17 at 07:30, Eddie Correia wrote:
> Hello everyone: 
> 
> I apologize for the error; the information I found on eCos history was
> obviously wring and we will run a correction. 
> 
> I'll be in touch with more specifics about how this happened in a few
> days. 

So what ever happened with this?  It's now [nearly] March 1, and I've 
not heard anything.

> 
> -Eddie
> 
> At 08:37 AM 2/17/2004, Gary Thomas wrote:
> 
> > First of all, I want it to be known that I was not consulted in any
> > way
> > about this article.  As has been mentioned many times, I was just a 
> > player in the creation of eCos, and was most certainly a late one at
> > that.
> > 
> > On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 05:53, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> > > Jonathan Larmour wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> > > > 
> > > >> Hi Eddie
> > > >>
> > > >> I just read your article
> > > >>   http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm
> > > >> and was quite astounded by one of the facts you claim - "1998 ­
> > Gary 
> > > >> Thomas develops the Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos)."
> > > >>
> > > >> This is *totally* incorrect.  The original architect of eCos
> > was Nick 
> > > >> Garnett who developed eCos in 1996, along with the original
> > team of 
> > > >> Bart Veer and Paul Beskeen.  The first release of eCos was in
> > 1997, at 
> > > >> least a year before Gary Thomas joined Cygnus in 1998.  Gary
> > was 
> > > >> approximately the 6th member to join the eCos team around the
> > time 
> > > >> Cygnus first released eCos publically.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > >  From my recollection, at least Paul, Nick, Bart, Hugo, Stu G,
> > Rob S, 
> > > > Chris Provenzano, Daniel Neades, John Dallaway, myself, Chris
> > Tarpy, 
> > > > Jesper, Simon Fitzmaurice, Mark Galassi and arguably Gary O, Liz
> > and 
> > > > Marc were members of the eCos team before Gary joined. That
> > makes Gary 
> > > > between the 14th and 17th eCos team member. It's okay Alex, it
> > was 
> > > > before your time too :-).
> > > > 
> > > > In that context, you can understand the surprise at such a
> > statement. 
> > > > Perhaps there was some misunderstanding given Gary's much longer
> > history 
> > > > and experience with PPC Linux as its main original developer?
> > > 
> > > Or RedBoot, since Gary did write that, although he wrote that
> > while at 
> > > Red Hat during 2000/2001 approx.  Gary could give more exact times
> > for 
> > > the birth of RedBoot when he confirms the inaccuracies of the
> > article.
> > > 
> > 
> > RedBoot grew out of internal needs and customer demands starting in
> > late
> > 1999.
> > 
> > Another major inaccuracy in the timeline [sidebar] from the article
> > is
> > that eCosCentric was not formed until mid to late summer of 2002,
> > well
> > after I had been laid off and the rest [the contingent in the UK]
> > had
> > been provided notice of redundancy.
> > 
> > I, too, am appalled at the level of error in this article and
> > fervently
> > appeal to the author and/or publisher to provide corrections to the
> > public.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>
> > MLB Associates
> ------------------------
> Edward J. Correia
> Senior News Editor
> Software Development Times
> mailto:ecorreia@bzmedia.com
> Phone - 516-922-2101 x100
> http://www.sdtimes.com
> BZ Media LLC - USA
> ________________
> ****_____________
> ****_____________
> ****_____________
> ________________
> ________________
> ________________ 
-- 
Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>
MLB Associates

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Alex Schuilenburg]

Gary Thomas wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-02-17 at 07:30, Eddie Correia wrote:
> 
>>Hello everyone: 
>>
>>I apologize for the error; the information I found on eCos history was
>>obviously wring and we will run a correction. 
>>
>>I'll be in touch with more specifics about how this happened in a few
>>days. 
> 
> 
> So what ever happened with this?  It's now [nearly] March 1, and I've 
> not heard anything.

It's March 1 now :-)

Eddie said he would print a retraction/correction for one of the points 
(i.e. the one about you creating eCos) in the next edition but made no 
mention of correcting the remaining timeline errors, nor the mistakes in 
the article, nor the mis-quotes.  He did mention he will contact us 
again when he is off-deadline.

-- Alex


> 
> 
>>-Eddie
>>
>>At 08:37 AM 2/17/2004, Gary Thomas wrote:
>>
>>
>>>First of all, I want it to be known that I was not consulted in any
>>>way
>>>about this article.  As has been mentioned many times, I was just a 
>>>player in the creation of eCos, and was most certainly a late one at
>>>that.
>>>
>>>On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 05:53, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
>>>
>>>>Jonathan Larmour wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Hi Eddie
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I just read your article
>>>>>>  http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm
>>>>>>and was quite astounded by one of the facts you claim - "1998 ­
>>>
>>>Gary 
>>>
>>>>>>Thomas develops the Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos)."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This is *totally* incorrect.  The original architect of eCos
>>>
>>>was Nick 
>>>
>>>>>>Garnett who developed eCos in 1996, along with the original
>>>
>>>team of 
>>>
>>>>>>Bart Veer and Paul Beskeen.  The first release of eCos was in
>>>
>>>1997, at 
>>>
>>>>>>least a year before Gary Thomas joined Cygnus in 1998.  Gary
>>>
>>>was 
>>>
>>>>>>approximately the 6th member to join the eCos team around the
>>>
>>>time 
>>>
>>>>>>Cygnus first released eCos publically.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> From my recollection, at least Paul, Nick, Bart, Hugo, Stu G,
>>>
>>>Rob S, 
>>>
>>>>>Chris Provenzano, Daniel Neades, John Dallaway, myself, Chris
>>>
>>>Tarpy, 
>>>
>>>>>Jesper, Simon Fitzmaurice, Mark Galassi and arguably Gary O, Liz
>>>
>>>and 
>>>
>>>>>Marc were members of the eCos team before Gary joined. That
>>>
>>>makes Gary 
>>>
>>>>>between the 14th and 17th eCos team member. It's okay Alex, it
>>>
>>>was 
>>>
>>>>>before your time too :-).
>>>>>
>>>>>In that context, you can understand the surprise at such a
>>>
>>>statement. 
>>>
>>>>>Perhaps there was some misunderstanding given Gary's much longer
>>>
>>>history 
>>>
>>>>>and experience with PPC Linux as its main original developer?
>>>>
>>>>Or RedBoot, since Gary did write that, although he wrote that
>>>
>>>while at 
>>>
>>>>Red Hat during 2000/2001 approx.  Gary could give more exact times
>>>
>>>for 
>>>
>>>>the birth of RedBoot when he confirms the inaccuracies of the
>>>
>>>article.
>>>
>>>RedBoot grew out of internal needs and customer demands starting in
>>>late
>>>1999.
>>>
>>>Another major inaccuracy in the timeline [sidebar] from the article
>>>is
>>>that eCosCentric was not formed until mid to late summer of 2002,
>>>well
>>>after I had been laid off and the rest [the contingent in the UK]
>>>had
>>>been provided notice of redundancy.
>>>
>>>I, too, am appalled at the level of error in this article and
>>>fervently
>>>appeal to the author and/or publisher to provide corrections to the
>>>public.
>>>
>>>-- 
>>>Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>
>>>MLB Associates
>>
>>------------------------
>>Edward J. Correia
>>Senior News Editor
>>Software Development Times
>>mailto:ecorreia@bzmedia.com
>>Phone - 516-922-2101 x100
>>http://www.sdtimes.com
>>BZ Media LLC - USA
>>________________
>>****_____________
>>****_____________
>>****_____________
>>________________
>>________________
>>________________ 

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Alex Schuilenburg]

Hi Eddie

Below is a fairly detailed timeline we pulled together last week.  This 
will be put up on our web site shortly.

eCos TimeLine

Mid-1996 Cygnus Solutions recruit team and begin the design of the
          "embedded Configurable operating system" targeting the deeply
          embedded market
Dec-1997 First release of eCos to key Japanese customers only under the
          "Cygnus eCos Public License"
Nov-1998 eCos 1.1 release (first public release)
May-1999 eCos 1.2.1 release
Nov-1999 Red Hat announces merger with Cygnus Solutions in exchange for
          $674 million (USD) [approx 185 staff at Cygnus Solutions]
Mar-2000 eCos 1.3.1 released under "Red Hat eCos Public License"
May-2000 Red Hat announces the availability of the RedBoot bootstrap
          firmware, built from the core eCos technology base
Apr-2002 eCos 2.0-alpha released under "GPL+exception license"
Apr-2002 Original members and developers of the eCos team form
          eCosCentric Limited in Cambridge-UK to focus on eCos & open
          source solutions
May-2002 Red Hat announce its withdrawal from the RTOS market and lays
          off the current entire eCos team
Jun-2002 eCos maintainers begin to add personal copyright ownership to
          their new contributions within the eCos and RedBoot public
          source base. Red Hat no longer are sole copyright holders
          of eCos and RedBoot.
Mar-2003 eCos 2.0-beta release
May-2003 eCos 2.0-final release
Sep-2003 eCosCentric announces the eCosPro Developer's Kits [TM]
Dec-2003 eCosCentric announces and begins accepting copyright
          assignments from the developer community in order to ensure
          prompt inclusion in the public sources
Jan-2004 Red Hat announce their "intention" to assign copyright for the
          portions of the original source base (pre May '02) to FSF

If you want more details, give me a call.

HTH
-- Alex



Eddie Correia wrote:

> Hello All:
> 
> Again my apologies. In publishing, as in programming, errors happen.
> 
> There is a correction on page 37 of the current (Mar 1) print edition of 
> SD Times that credits Nick Garnett for the original creation of eCos. 
> DISCLAIMER: I submitted Alex's correction (which included Bart Veer and 
> Paul Beskeen) to my editor. Only Nick's name was used. I will seek to 
> have the entire eCos time line corrected on our Web site by the end of 
> this week. I will use Alex's accounting of events unless I hear 
> otherwise by Wednesday, March 3.
> 
> Further corrections are out of my control. If anyone would like to "set 
> the record straight," I recommend that one or more of you write 
> letter(s) to the editor <feedback@bzmedia.com>. Include "Letter to the 
> Editor" in the subject line.
> 
> Regards,
> -Eddie
> 
> At 02:57 PM 2/29/2004, Gary Thomas wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 2004-02-17 at 07:30, Eddie Correia wrote:
>> > Hello everyone:
>> >
>> > I apologize for the error; the information I found on eCos history was
>> > obviously wring and we will run a correction.
>> >
>> > I'll be in touch with more specifics about how this happened in a few
>> > days.
>>
>> So what ever happened with this?  It's now [nearly] March 1, and I've
>> not heard anything.
>>
>> >
>> > -Eddie
>> >
>> > At 08:37 AM 2/17/2004, Gary Thomas wrote:
>> >
>> > > First of all, I want it to be known that I was not consulted in any
>> > > way
>> > > about this article.  As has been mentioned many times, I was just a
>> > > player in the creation of eCos, and was most certainly a late one at
>> > > that.
>> > >
>> > > On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 05:53, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
>> > > > Jonathan Larmour wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > > Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
>> > > > >
>> > > > >> Hi Eddie
>> > > > >>
>> > > > >> I just read your article
>> > > > >>   http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm
>> > > > >> and was quite astounded by one of the facts you claim - "1998 ­
>> > > Gary
>> > > > >> Thomas develops the Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos)."
>> > > > >>
>> > > > >> This is *totally* incorrect.  The original architect of eCos
>> > > was Nick
>> > > > >> Garnett who developed eCos in 1996, along with the original
>> > > team of
>> > > > >> Bart Veer and Paul Beskeen.  The first release of eCos was in
>> > > 1997, at
>> > > > >> least a year before Gary Thomas joined Cygnus in 1998.  Gary
>> > > was
>> > > > >> approximately the 6th member to join the eCos team around the
>> > > time
>> > > > >> Cygnus first released eCos publically.
>> > > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > > >  From my recollection, at least Paul, Nick, Bart, Hugo, Stu G,
>> > > Rob S,
>> > > > > Chris Provenzano, Daniel Neades, John Dallaway, myself, Chris
>> > > Tarpy,
>> > > > > Jesper, Simon Fitzmaurice, Mark Galassi and arguably Gary O, Liz
>> > > and
>> > > > > Marc were members of the eCos team before Gary joined. That
>> > > makes Gary
>> > > > > between the 14th and 17th eCos team member. It's okay Alex, it
>> > > was
>> > > > > before your time too :-).
>> > > > >
>> > > > > In that context, you can understand the surprise at such a
>> > > statement.
>> > > > > Perhaps there was some misunderstanding given Gary's much longer
>> > > history
>> > > > > and experience with PPC Linux as its main original developer?
>> > > >
>> > > > Or RedBoot, since Gary did write that, although he wrote that
>> > > while at
>> > > > Red Hat during 2000/2001 approx.  Gary could give more exact times
>> > > for
>> > > > the birth of RedBoot when he confirms the inaccuracies of the
>> > > article.
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > > RedBoot grew out of internal needs and customer demands starting in
>> > > late
>> > > 1999.
>> > >
>> > > Another major inaccuracy in the timeline [sidebar] from the article
>> > > is
>> > > that eCosCentric was not formed until mid to late summer of 2002,
>> > > well
>> > > after I had been laid off and the rest [the contingent in the UK]
>> > > had
>> > > been provided notice of redundancy.
>> > >
>> > > I, too, am appalled at the level of error in this article and
>> > > fervently
>> > > appeal to the author and/or publisher to provide corrections to the
>> > > public.
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>
>> > > MLB Associates
>> > ------------------------
>> > Edward J. Correia
>> > Senior News Editor
>> > Software Development Times
>> > mailto:ecorreia@bzmedia.com
>> > Phone - 516-922-2101 x100
>> > http://www.sdtimes.com <http://www.sdtimes.com/>
>> > BZ Media LLC - USA
>> > ________________
>> > ****_____________
>> > ****_____________
>> > ****_____________
>> > ________________
>> > ________________
>> > ________________
>> -- 
>> Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com>
>> MLB Associates
> 
> ------------------------
> Edward J. Correia
> Senior News Editor
> Software Development Times
> mailto:ecorreia@bzmedia.com
> Phone - 516-922-2101 x100
> http://www.sdtimes.com
> <http://www.sdtimes.com/>BZ Media LLC - USA
> ________________
> ****_____________
> ****_____________
> ****_____________
> ________________
> ________________
> ________________
>

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Andrew Lunn]

> Eddie Correia wrote:
> 
> >Hello All:
> >
> >Again my apologies. In publishing, as in programming, errors happen.
> >
> >There is a correction on page 37 of the current (Mar 1) print edition of 
> >SD Times that credits Nick Garnett for the original creation of eCos. 
> >DISCLAIMER: I submitted Alex's correction (which included Bart Veer and 
> >Paul Beskeen) to my editor. Only Nick's name was used. I will seek to 
> >have the entire eCos time line corrected on our Web site by the end of 
> >this week. I will use Alex's accounting of events unless I hear 
> >otherwise by Wednesday, March 3.
> >
> >Further corrections are out of my control. If anyone would like to "set 
> >the record straight," I recommend that one or more of you write 
> >letter(s) to the editor <feedback@bzmedia.com>. Include "Letter to the 
> >Editor" in the subject line.

I presume you are going to submit such a letter?

    Andrew

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Alex Schuilenburg]

Andrew Lunn wrote:

[...]
> 
> I presume you are going to submit such a letter?

Yes, just after I finish writing that other letter where another paper 
quoted Gary Thomas as one of the three founding members (there were 9) 
of eCosCentric, he left eCosCentric in 2002 because we were supposedly 
in "financial difficulties" (a neat trick given we were not even trading 
at that time), attributing the renaming name of eCos to Gary, and 
describing arbitrary former eCos developers as "the original eCos team". 
  Oh, and Gary still works for Mind - apparently :-)

I won't point you to the article publically as I don't want to give the 
article any creditability in this public archive.  Gary will probably 
guess the paper as they obviously interviewed and misquoted him and will 
probably contact him again once I send off that email to confirm my 
corrections - in writing.

What I really do not understand is how reporters can get things so wrong 
so consistently.

Stating the blindingly obvious:
             "Don't believe what you read in the papers"

-- Alex

> 
>     Andrew

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Jonathan Larmour]

Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> Andrew Lunn wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>>
>> I presume you are going to submit such a letter?
> 
> 
> Yes, just after I finish writing that other letter where another paper 
> quoted Gary Thomas as one of the three founding members (there were 9) 
> of eCosCentric, he left eCosCentric in 2002 because we were supposedly 
> in "financial difficulties" (a neat trick given we were not even trading 
> at that time), attributing the renaming name of eCos to Gary, and 
> describing arbitrary former eCos developers as "the original eCos team". 
>  Oh, and Gary still works for Mind - apparently :-)
> 
> I won't point you to the article publically as I don't want to give the 
> article any creditability in this public archive.  Gary will probably 
> guess the paper as they obviously interviewed and misquoted him and will 
> probably contact him again once I send off that email to confirm my 
> corrections - in writing.

Well I'd like to go to the fallback option of correcting the SD times 
article on the ecos-discuss list, so that it _is_ on the record. If there's 
now another article with mistakes in (they will start breeding as one mag 
will use the misinformation in other articles as a source), then we can 
issue a correction for that at the same time which will look more 
even-handed too.

This would be from the maintainers not eCosCentric BTW :-). So anything 
eCosCentric-y wouldn't be covered in that correction. It's up to 
eCosCentric to do that if they want, although they (err... we (oh this is 
confusing)) could follow up to such an article themselves of course if they 
wish.

The corrections for the SDTimes article are:

  http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm

- The article mistakenly claims that in 1998 Gary Thomas developed the 
Embedded Cygnus Operating System (eCos). In fact the idea of eCos started 
in 1996 and the original three developers of eCos were Paul Beskeen, Nick 
Garnett and Bart Veer. There were between 15 and 18 subsequent members of 
the eCos team employed, depending on what roles you include, before Gary 
Thomas was employed. The first release of eCos was in December 1997, the 
first public release being in November 1998. The name of eCos was decided 
upon by the Cygnus Solutions marketing department in 1998.

- Red Hat have not transferred ownership of eCos to the FSF. Red Hat have 
at this stage only issued a press release stating they intend to do so at 
some point in the future. The eCos maintainers have not yet heard more from 
Red Hat, and no copyright transfer has to our knowledge taken place, nor do 
we know of any plans or schedule for it taking place. The original pre-2002 
eCos code is still copyright Red Hat, and code from 2002 to present is 
partially copyright Red Hat and additionally copyrighted by eCos maintainers.

- eCos 1.3.1, the final official release from Red Hat, was released in 
March 2000, not 2001.

- Red Hat did ramp down eCos sales in February but the team were not laid 
off, even though that may have been expected. The majority of the eCos team 
continued to be employed by Red Hat until being laid off in May 2002 which 
can be confirmed in contemporary press reports. Some team members continued 
to work on eCos until August 2002. Mark Salter, also an eCos team member at 
that point, is still a Red Hat employee, and is an eCos maintainer. Note 
that none of the eCos team were fired; they were laid off.

- eCos 2.0 was released in May 2003, not September.

- In connection with Michael Tiemann's quote that the 17 month delay 
between its decision to cease eCos development and donate the code was due 
to "a careful effort to remove any parts that were inappropriate for open 
source. " I wish to clarify that no such previously unreleased code has 
been released by Red Hat since the eCos team's departure, and no code in 
eCos is being removed. All code released by the eCos team prior to the 
split with Red Hat was, is and remains open source under the eCos license. 
This cannot be revoked under the terms of the GNU Public License.

This needs to be clarified as Mr.Tiemann's statement may imply that the 
code that people have been using since 2002 up to today has been in some 
sort of uncertain legal state, and some of it may be removed. This is untrue.

Jifl
-- 
eCosCentric    http://www.eCosCentric.com/    The eCos and RedBoot experts
 >>>>> Visit us in booth 2527 at the Embedded Systems Conference 2004 <<<<<
March 30 - April 1, San Francisco http://www.esconline.com/electronicaUSA/
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Andrew Lunn]

> This would be from the maintainers not eCosCentric BTW :-). So anything 
> eCosCentric-y wouldn't be covered in that correction. It's up to 
> eCosCentric to do that if they want, although they (err... we (oh this is 
> confusing)) could follow up to such an article themselves of course if they 
> wish.

Any idea how you will introduce this text to make it clear its from
the maintainers not eCosCentric? As you say, its confusing, and you
known the difference!

The text itself is great.

    Andrew

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Jonathan Larmour]

Andrew Lunn wrote:
>>This would be from the maintainers not eCosCentric BTW :-). So anything 
>>eCosCentric-y wouldn't be covered in that correction. It's up to 
>>eCosCentric to do that if they want, although they (err... we (oh this is 
>>confusing)) could follow up to such an article themselves of course if they 
>>wish.
> 
> 
> Any idea how you will introduce this text to make it clear its from
> the maintainers not eCosCentric? As you say, its confusing, and you
> known the difference!

For a start I can send it from my personal e-mail addr. And the point is 
that I'm not going to put it out until you other guys are okay with it, at 
which point that allows me to say something like:

Recently an article was published in SD Times about eCos and the proposed 
copyright assignment of Red Hat owned portions to the FSF. Unfortunately a 
number of factual errors were made in the article, and the eCos maintainers 
would like to be able to inform and reassure eCos users about the content 
of that article, an uncorrected version of which may be found at 
http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm

[etc.]

so since it says it's from the maintainers and there's no mention of 
eCosCentric, I hope that would do...... but of course, duh, I've just 
realised you could post it too :-). I'm not really bothered which of us 
does it. Yeah, do that once we're sure no-one has any issues with it (we've 
waited a while already, so waiting a couple more days in case people are 
out of town is fine).

> The text itself is great.

Just trying to keep it to the facts anyway. Feel free to nitpick if I've 
introduced any slant!

Jifl
-- 
eCosCentric    http://www.eCosCentric.com/    The eCos and RedBoot experts
 >>>>> Visit us in booth 2527 at the Embedded Systems Conference 2004 <<<<<
March 30 - April 1, San Francisco http://www.esconline.com/electronicaUSA/
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine

Re: Red eCos: Going, Going, Gone

[Andrew Lunn]

> For a start I can send it from my personal e-mail addr. And the point is 
> that I'm not going to put it out until you other guys are okay with it, at 
> which point that allows me to say something like:
> 
> Recently an article was published in SD Times about eCos and the proposed 
> copyright assignment of Red Hat owned portions to the FSF. Unfortunately a 
> number of factual errors were made in the article,

"The maintainers have discussed this article* and ..."

> would like to be able to inform and reassure eCos users about the content 
> of that article, an uncorrected version of which may be found at 
> http://sdtimes.com/news/096/emb1.htm

And in a footnote

* http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-maintainers/

It points people to the discussion we had and so shows its not been
eCosCentric internal...

            Andrew