eCos is an open source, royalty-free, real-time operating system intended for embedded systems and applications. The highly configurable nature of eCos allows the operating system to be customised to precise application requirements, delivering the best possible run-time performance and an optimised hardware resource footprint. A thriving net community has grown up around the operating system ensuring on-going technical innovation and wide platform support.

eCos was designed for devices with memory footprints in the tens to hundreds of kilobytes, or with real-time requirements. It can be used on hardware that doesn't have enough RAM to support embedded Linux, which currently requires a minimum of about 2 MB of RAM, not including application and service requirements.

eCos runs on a wide variety of hardware platforms, including ARM, CalmRISC , FR-V , Hitachi H8, IA-32, Motorola 68000, Matsushita AM3x , MIPS, NEC V8xx , PowerPC, SPARC, SuperH and Nios II.

History

eCos was initially developed by Cygnus Solutions which was later bought by Red Hat. In late 2002, Red Hat ceased development of eCos and laid off the staff that were working on the project. Many of the laid-off staff continued to work on eCos, and some formed their own companies providing services for the software. In January 2004, at the request of the eCos developers, Red Hat agreed to transfer its eCos copyrights to the Free Software Foundation.

External links

• eCos Homepage
• Red Hat annoucement of copyright transfer to FSF
• "eCos Porting Guide" article by Anthony J. Massa 2001-12-28