Establishing and Engaging an Active Open Source Ecosystem with the BeagleBoard

摘要

There should be little doubt that any given area of technology will eventually be occupied by open solutions. Rather, it is a question of "who" and"when." In mobile and embedded platforms, there is not a single dominant proprietary solution to displace, unlike desktop software. Instead, opensoftware produces interface and compatibility experiences on par with proprietary software.At points where no proprietary solution is clearly differentiated from open solutions and the barriers to participation are kept low, open innovationthrives at the forefront of the technology. This article introduces BeagleBoard.org, a project that creates powerful, open, and embedded devicesbased on the BeagleBoard hardware, a low-cost, fan-less single-board computer. By lowering the barriers to participation and makingcommitments to support and sustain the architecture to preserve the innovation from that participation, BeagleBoard.org has built an active andgrowing community of hobbyists and professionals advancing the state of the art in low-power embedded computing.