Letters

A discussion of ``who is responsible'' started months ago in the ELJ Newsletter. We continue to receive input. It looks like I have a lawyer lined up to write a series of articles on this issue as well as intellectual property issues. In the meantime, here is one of the letters discussing one of the issues.

Embedded Linux Journal Newsletter wrote:

The GPL Issue from Another Direction

The issue is a bit wider than that. You may get hit for patent infringement or product liability.

Consider forming an association that purchases liability insurance for its members. For any single vendor, insurance will probably be prohibitive, but for a sufficiently large group it may be bearable.

Bill Meakin

I am a subscriber to Embedded Linux Journal and I thought that you might be interested in some Linux activity going on in the nuclear power industry. Each power plant has a full-scale control room simulator that is run in real time by computers. We use these simulators for operator training and evaluation. Recently one plant near Boston started using Linux as the platform for their simulation software.

P.S. You have an excellent publication and I enjoy every issue!

Thank you.

Carl E. GolightlyEnergy NorthwestSimulator Engineeringcegolightly@energy-northwest.com

We are interested. Thanks.

ED

I got your e-mail newsletter and was very interested in your thoughts on the Generic Board for embedded applications.

My company primarily provides design engineering consulting services for other companies, but recently we started developing our own products. We are currently working on a generic platform for data acquisition applications. We are a hardware-oriented company and so are intrigued by the possibility of using Linux and letting the world develop software for the devices that we manufacture.

Our plan would be to develop a platform with certain basic hardware blocks that would be common across a range of products. We would port embedded Linux to this platform but then rely on third parties to write the end-user application software that defines the device. As such, we would provide documentation on the hardware in sufficient detail to allow the software effort to be as easy as possible.

Your idea of a generic platform to support router applications fits very well with our strategy, so I would be interested in pursuing this effort. If you could let me know the hardware feature set you are thinking of, I could take a crack at estimating the costs for such a platform to see if we can hit the market sweet spot for the product. Maybe we could get something going here.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Bob Piatekfishcamp engineering

I recently received issue #3 of ELJ and instantly read it from cover to cover. It's a wonderful magazine with an excellent balance of hardware and software articles. (I still carry it with me daily to work.) After reading the magazine and searching your web site I found that there was a lot of material in your first two issues that would have greatly benefited me. Some of the articles are available on your web site, but I would really rather have the first two back issues of ELJ if that is possible.

Thanks again for a great magazine. I'm looking forward to submitting a design for your NIC contest.

Very best regards.

Tony Coleman

Thanks for the kind words. Much like the early days of Linux Journal, we want to bring useful information to the community to help it grow. As for back issues, we reserve a small quantity for our on-line store and then ship all the rest to subscribers and trade shows. If there are copies of a back issue available, it is through the on-line store at http://store.linuxjournal.com/.

ED