TotalEmbedded believes in the concept of free open source software. Not only do we believe in it
we have leveraged it for clients, leveraged it for ourselves, contributed to it, and profited from
it. We do however completely understand and respect intellectual property and recognize the importance
protecting it.
We never release anything as open source software unless we completely own it or a client agrees
to release it as open source software.
Here are links to our open source project pages:
The GPS manager project
Our never ending JTAG projects
Some fingerprint recognition libraries
A WindowsCE driver for mouse emulation with a keypad
Objtool is distributed with the AVR-GCC GNU tools for ELF to COFF conversions
There are some common misconceptions about open source software, most importantly is that you
cannot sell it for profit. That is not the case, you can take open source software and apply
it to your application and sell it for profit. The following is a quote directly from the
Free Software Foundation which is the foundation
who champions the concept:
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The word ``free'' has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to
price. When we speak of ``free software'', we're talking about freedom, not price. (Think of
``free speech'', not ``free beer''.) Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the
program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes.
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Free programs are sometimes distributed gratis, and sometimes for a substantial price. Often
the same program is available in both ways from different places. The program is free regardless
of the price, because users have freedom in using it.
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Non-free programs are usually sold for a high price, but sometimes a store will give you a copy
at no charge. That doesn't make it free software, though. Price or no price, the program is
non-free because users don't have freedom.
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Since free software is not a matter of price, a low price isn't more free, or closer to free.
So if you are redistributing copies of free software, you might as well charge a substantial
fee and make some money. Redistributing free software is a good and legitimate activity; if
you do it, you might as well make a profit from it.
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Use, enjoy, learn, and profit from our open source projects. You can find them as links at
the top of this page.
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