Anonymous CVS Access

Introduction

The most recent versions of eCos and RedBoot may be obtained using anonymous CVS access. This facility provides immediate access to the latest eCos and RedBoot features and the rapid deployment of any necessary bug fixes.

For those unfamiliar with CVS, the following resources may be of use:

• CVShome.org has CVS clients available for download. Other information and links to books on the subject can also be found at this site.
• A good starting point is the Introduction to CVS by Jim Blandy.
• The CVS sources come with texinfo documentation which is also available in HTML format.

eCos 2.0

The eCos v2.0 code base is now available via anonymous CVS. eCos v2.0 includes a change to the licence from the old Red Hat eCos Public Licence (RHEPL) to the GNU General Public License (GPL) with a modification that makes it more suitable for embedded systems. Further details of the license change are available in our licence overview. To retrieve the last revision that was licensed under the RHEPL, you need to use the last-rhepl CVS tag in your CVS checkout as described below.

The CVS source repository

The anonymous CVS repository contains the latest changes to the eCos sources and is updated as necessary by the eCos maintainers. However, users should note that these updates have not been rigorously tested and cannot be guaranteed to build or function correctly. It is therefore recommended that new developers work with the v2.0 release of eCos and RedBoot currently. The repository should be used in situations where you need access to new features, bug fixes, or are working on a shared contributed project.

The anonymous CVS repository includes as much source code as we are able to publicize. However, there may be new architectural ports, board ports, or areas of functionality which cannot be made available in this way for commercial or contractual reasons.

The relevant host side build tools may be obtained by FTP from this site and are not provided by anonymous CVS. Any patches or changes required to enable the use of these tools with the latest version of eCos in the repository will be publicized. If any updates to the eCos Configuration Tool are required, we will put up a new binary as soon as possible. You should ensure that you use the latest version of the Configuration Tool from the most recent net release of eCos when working with the sources from the anonymous CVS repository.

Accessing the repository

Before you can access the CVS repository, you must have a CVS client (see above) and direct TCP/IP access. If you are behind a firewall, you should discuss access with your local systems administrator.

If you are using CVS v1.10 or earlier (use 'cvs -v' to determine), you will first need to run the following command before you can access the repository the very first time:

Any password is accepted.

It is recommended that you use different directory trees for the anonymous CVS sources and for full releases of eCos. Create a new directory for the check out, change to that directory, and type:

This command should initiate a connection to the CVS server and check out the latest version of eCos, including TCP/IP networking stack and SNMP. For those who want the last version of eCos to be released under the RHEPL, instead type:

In the future, when you want to update your repository to the latest version, go to the base of the repository tree and use the command:

or to update to the older RHEPL'd version of eCos:

Using the repository

Once the sources have been checked out, Unix users (or Windows users using the command line) can switch to it by setting the ECOS_REPOSITORY environment variable to the ecos/packages subdirectory of the checked out tree. For example:

The current set of sources in the CVS repository requires recent versions of the host-side configuration tools for correct operation. The tools provided in eCos releases prior to the 2.0 beta release are not suitable. Users of the eCos Configuration Tool should select the new repository using the Build->Repository menu item.

Use of a new repository with an old build tree is not recommended. Changes may have been made to the repository CDL files that will not be present in the working versions in your build tree.

Other notes

Anonymous CVS access to the repository is read-only. If you would like to contribute a change, bug fix or other improvement to eCos then you should start by discussing it on the ecos-discuss mailing list. If applicable, you may wish to post (or put up for FTP) the relevant diff or patch.

You can obtain e-mail notifications when changes are made to the eCos repository. Refer to our keeping in touch page for further details.

Since the anonymous CVS repository is copied from the master repository, the author field and log entries are not accurate. Use the ChangeLog files at the top of each package hierarchy to obtain history on the sources in that package.

eCosCentric Limited are providing a weekly CVS snapshot service for those developers who are unable to access the anonymous CVS server due to firewall restrictions.

Queries and problems regarding use of the anonymous CVS service should be directed to the ecos-discuss mailing list. The eCos development team, including the anonymous CVS maintainer, read this list. Please clarify that the mail concerns an anonymous CVS problem in the subject field.