“…[at the] Embedded Systems Conference West, the industry
trade show in San Jose, Calif. The biggest news event was the Great
Open Source Debate, during which two teams squared off to debate
the merits of proprietary vs. open source development in the
embedded systems realm. Involved in the debate were Michael
Tiemann, chief technology officer for Red Hat, John Fogelin, VP of
technology at Wind River Systems (WIND), Bill Gatliff, a freelance
embedded developer and Steven Stolper, system software manager at
Silicon Spice.”
“The debate, which is documented in its entirety on the
LinuxDevices website, began with Red Hat’s Tiemann describing
the open source development process as “revolutionary” and
irreversible. “Open source has fueled an unheralded process of
collaborative innovation,” he said. “No technology propagates as
quickly as open source technology.”
“Sticking up for the proprietary side was Wind River’s
Fogelin, who described open source as less cause and more symptom
of the changes gripping the embedded systems market. “I agree
that the embedded industry is undergoing a massive discontinuity —
but not due to operating systems — rather, due to the Internet,”
Fogelin said.”