For further details of all the changes see the NEWS file. This is the first release of eCos since the merger of Red Hat and Cygnus Solutions was completed. Red Hat is dedicated to continued enhancement and maintenance of the eCos system. The license terms themselves have not changed in any material way other than alterations necessary to accommodate the change in company details. About eCos eCos is provided as an open source runtime system supported by the Red Hat GNUPro and GNU open source development tools.
Developers have full and unfettered access to all aspects of the runtime system.
No parts of it are proprietary or hidden, and you are at liberty to examine, add to, and modify the code as you deem necessary. It also grants you the right to freely develop and distribute applications based on eCos. You are not expected or required to make your embedded applications or any additional components that you develop freely available, although we do require that you make publicly available any modifications to the eCos code itself. Red Hat of course welcomes all contributions back to eCos such as board ports, device drivers and other components, as this helps the growth and development of eCos, and is of benefit to the entire eCos community. One of the key technological innovations in eCos is our configuration system.