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[ts-7000] TS stance on TS-Linux (was Re: busyborx II)

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Subject: [ts-7000] TS stance on TS-Linux (was Re: busyborx II)
From: "Jesse Off" <>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:16:25 -0000
--- In  "j.chitte" <> wrote:

> This is getting very messy. Since 'find' is one of the tools 
provided
> by busybox it appears that this is another significant breakage in
> what TS are still providing as supplied software.
> 
> Worse , if anyone is daft enough to buy the "development kit" they
> actually pay money for this broken unmaintained release.
> 
> I really should not need to set up a complete cross-compiler
> development system to replace what should be provided in a working
> state.
> 
> One of the main reasons I chose a TS product was it was claimed to
> have a working mini linux out of the box and a full debian image
> suitable for installing on a USB device.
> 
> Since the supplied busybox is too broken to even rebuild it's own
> update I'll now have to find an arm binary to get out of this 
chicken
> and egg situation.
> 
> "Fully embrasing linux" seems to mean letting this list do most of
> the product support for them.
> 

We refuse in all but extreme cases to update software shipping on 
released products.  Indeed-- at one point several years ago we 
updated busybox and immediately had to un-update it since it had 
fixed some known bugs, but introduced new ones.  This fact about TS 
may upset some, but we have people shipping products in the field and 
they'd be even more upset if we started changing.  We're not about to 
upset all these companies just so a new featured version of awk and 
find can be provided to Linux novices who find it prohibitively 
difficult to recompile from source code.

> Anyone thinking of buying a TS product should realise they are going
> to have to get head long into embedded system development. They do
> not work out of the box as advertised.

As this is an embedded product designed for development, it should be 
no surprise that you have to "get head long into embedded system 
development", as you say.  We make no illusion that developing with 
Linux is easy and annoyance free.  Its harder for some than others. 

The versions of Linux preloaded on our boards is intended as a demo.  
We are a small company with limited resources and I can't have design 
engineers concerned with keeping the features of various software 
utilities they didn't write up to date on a version of Linux that we 
really cannot change now anyway.  Trying to keep updated with open 
source is a black hole that would require us to either raise prices 
as our product line grows or start discontinuing older products.  Not 
only would that be a stupid business move, it would alienate a large 
class of like-minded embedded developers that do not subscribe to the 
PC and consumer electronics industry mindset of perpetual update and 
redesign.

//Jesse Off



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