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><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
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