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<!-- Copyright (C) 2003 Red Hat, Inc. --> <!-- This material may be distributed only subject to the terms --> <!-- and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 --> <!-- or later (the latest version is presently available at --> <!-- http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). --> <!-- Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any --> <!-- standard (paper) book form is prohibited unless prior --> <!-- permission is obtained from the copyright holder. --> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >eCos Overview</TITLE ><meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.76b+ "><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="eCos User Guide" HREF="ecos-user-guide.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Introduction" HREF="user-guide-introduction.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Key Features" HREF="ecos-key-features.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="eCos Licence Overview" HREF="ecos-licensing.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="CHAPTER" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >eCos User Guide</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="ecos-key-features.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="ecos-licensing.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="CHAPTER" ><H1 ><A NAME="ECOS-OVERVIEW">Chapter 2. <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > Overview</H1 ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > is an open source, configurable, portable, and royalty-free embedded real-time operating system. The following text expands on these core aspects that define <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN >.</P ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > is provided as an open source runtime system supported by the GNU open source development tools. Developers have full and unfettered access to all aspects of the runtime system. No parts of it are proprietary or hidden, and you are at liberty to examine, add to, and modify the code as you deem necessary. These rights are granted to you and protected by the GNU Public License (GPL). An exception clause has been added to the eCos license which limits the circumstances in which the license applies to other code when used in conjunction with eCos. This exception grants you the right to freely develop and distribute applications based on <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN >. You are not expected or required to make your embedded applications or any additional components that you develop freely available so long as they are not derived from <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > code. We of course welcome all contributions back to <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > such as board ports, device drivers and other components, as this helps the growth and development of <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN >, and is of benefit to the entire <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > community. See <A HREF="ecos-licensing.html" >Chapter 3</A > for more details.</P ><P >One of the key technological innovations in <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > is the configuration system. The configuration system allows the application writer to impose their requirements on the run-time components, both in terms of their functionality and implementation, whereas traditionally the operating system has constrained the application's own implementation. Essentially, this enables <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > developers to create their own application-specific operating system and makes <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > suitable for a wide range of embedded uses. Configuration also ensures that the resource footprint of <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > is minimized as all unnecessary functionality and features are removed. The configuration system also presents <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > as a component architecture. This provides a standardized mechanism for component suppliers to extend the functionality of <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > and allows applications to be built from a wide set of optional configurable run-time components. Components can be provided from a variety of sources including: the standard <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > release; commercial third party developers or open source contributors.</P ><P >The royalty-free nature of <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > means that you can develop and deploy your application using the standard <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > release without incurring any royalty charges. In addition, there are no up-front license charges for the <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > runtime source code and associated tools. We provide, without charge, everything necessary for basic embedded applications development.</P ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > is designed to be portable to a wide range of target architectures and target platforms including 16, 32, and 64 bit architectures, MPUs, MCUs and DSPs. The <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > kernel, libraries and runtime components are layered on the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), and thus will run on any target once the HAL and relevant device drivers have been ported to the target's processor architecture and board. Currently <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > supports a large range of different target architectures: </P ><P ></P ><UL ><LI ><P >ARM, Intel StrongARM and XScale</P ></LI ><LI ><P >Fujitsu FR-V</P ></LI ><LI ><P >Hitachi SH2/3/4</P ></LI ><LI ><P >Hitachi H8/300H </P ></LI ><LI ><P >Intel x86</P ></LI ><LI ><P >MIPS</P ></LI ><LI ><P >Matsushita AM3x</P ></LI ><LI ><P >Motorola PowerPC</P ></LI ><LI ><P >Motorola 68k/Coldfire</P ></LI ><LI ><P >NEC V850</P ></LI ><LI ><P >Sun SPARC</P ></LI ></UL ><P >including many of the popular variants of these architectures and evaluation boards.</P ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > has been designed to support applications with real-time requirements, providing features such as full preemptability, minimal interrupt latencies, and all the necessary synchronization primitives, scheduling policies, and interrupt handling mechanisms needed for these type of applications. <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > also provides all the functionality required for general embedded application support including device drivers, memory management, exception handling, C, math libraries, etc. In addition to runtime support, the <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > system includes all the tools necessary to develop embedded applications, including <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > software configuration and build tools, and GNU based compilers, assemblers, linkers, debuggers, and simulators.</P ><P >To get the most out of <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > you should visit the <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > open source developers site: <A HREF="http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/" TARGET="_top" >http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/</A >.</P ><P >The site is dedicated to the <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > developer community and contains a rich set of resources including news, FAQ, online documentation, installation guide, discussion and announcement mailing lists, and runtime and development tools downloads. The site also supports anonymous CVS and WEBCVS access to provide direct access to the latest <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > source base. </P ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > is released as open source software because we believe that this is the most effective software development model, and that it provides the greatest benefit to the embedded developer community as a whole. As part of this endeavor, we seek the input and participation of <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > developers in its continuing evolution. Participation can take many forms including:</P ><P ></P ><UL ><LI ><P >providing us with feedback on how <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > might be made more useful to you - by taking part in the ongoing mailing list discussions and by submitting problem reports covering bugs, documentation issues, and missing features</P ></LI ><LI ><P >contributing bug fixes and enhancement patches</P ></LI ><LI ><P >contributing new code including device drivers, board ports, libraries, and other runtime components</P ></LI ></UL ><P >Our long term aim is to make <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > a rich and ubiquitous standard infrastructure for the development of deeply embedded applications. This will be achieved with the assistance of the <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > developer community cooperating to improve <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > for all. We would like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to the many <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > developers who have already contributed feedback, ideas, patches, and code that have augmented and improved this release.</P ><P ><SPAN CLASS="emphasis" ><I CLASS="EMPHASIS" >The <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > Maintainers</I ></SPAN ></P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="ecos-key-features.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="ecos-user-guide.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="ecos-licensing.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Key Features</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="user-guide-introduction.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >eCos</SPAN > Licence Overview</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >
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