If somebody produces a port to a new processor but does not wish to maintain it indefinitely then the eCos maintainers may be willing to adopt this port. This involves quite possibly code clean-ups so that it satisfies the coding standards, possibly new documentation, and if hardware is available, testing. In addition we will maintain the port, upgrading it as the HAL specification evolves. The effort involved is considerable, and over time it will be significantly larger than the initial port. Usually the eCos maintainers will only be able to afford to do so if there are likely to be sufficient long-term interest. Also, we would need a ready source of suitable hardware that can be used for the testing, and we would need a copyright assignment for such ports.

However a port does not have to be supported for it to be useful to somebody. If a port (or any other eCos package) does not have an active maintainer then it can still be made available as unsupported software, provided space on our ftp server and suitable links in the web pages. This allows people to download and use such ports. If there are enough users for an unsupported port then perhaps somebody else will take over the maintainership. The same is of course true for any piece of contributed software.