Letters

What? No more MontaVista Journeyman? What about
the GNU cross-compiler?While attending the standards meeting for the Embedded Linux
Consortium, it was pointed out to me that MontaVista has recently
changed their policy of making the Journeyman CDs available. Those
CDs, and ones like them, have brought the GNU cross-compiler to a
lot of people. MontaVista has been one of the better companies at
providing this to the public in the past.Now it seems, similar to Red Hat's policy on their GNUPro
tools, that you would be required to purchase a maintenance
contract with them to receive the software.This is a sad turn of events for the Embedded Linux
community, in my opinion, and if more and more companies continue
to provide this type of offering, developers will have a more
difficult time in getting the GNU toolchain needed for
cross-platform development. I hope they will consider releasing the
toolchain, even if they hold back the rest of their source for
their subscribers only.I hope this sad turn of events doesn't prevent the GNU
toolchain from getting to the hands of developers in the long run.
If more vendors continue down this path, it will only become more
difficult for the general public to have a version of the GNU
toolchain available to them.It also makes me wonder if there shouldn't be a common
toolchain that is maintained by the Embedded Linux Consortium as a
way to get that toolchain into the hands of developers--whoever and
whenever they may need it.--Alan DuBoffSoftware Orchestration, Inc.
Don Marti and the winners of Embedded Linux
Journal's first contest enjoying some Costa Rican
cuisine.