We develop software mainly for the software ecosystem around our fault-tolerant LEON processor family and GRLIB IPs. The software provided are developed for different purposes and targets different usage which sets different requirements on the software life cycle of a product.

• Target software
  
  • Flight Software
  • Operating system support
  • Demonstration and example software
• Host software tools
  
  • Tools intended for software debugging, simulation and analysis
  • Compiler toolchains used to generate target software

The life cycles of our products are also affected by how the development is carried out. For example if the software product is developed entirely by us or based on open-source/commercial software following their own individual life cycle procedures. The host PC platform life cycle may affect too.

Our software life cycle varies between products and affects even components within the same product. The following sections briefly describe our software life cycle address the above complexity.

General about software life cycle

In general we use the following states to describe and categorize a SW product.

• Development
  
  • Releases are typically named alpha, beta or release candidate(rc)
  • Feature requests are possible
  • Limited support
• Production
  
  • Products based on 3rd party / open-source software follows a stable release
  • Feature requests are possible
  • Full support and updates
• Legacy
  
  • Support limited to bug-fixing
  • Software updates may depend on user demand
  • Migrate to newer product available in production state
• End of life (EOL)

In addition to the above it is important to notice that the life cycle of a software product may be limited for a specific target HW, the device support may vary. New devices are typically supported only by the newer software products, or the SW products able to leverage the new performance of a new device. For the device support of specific software products please see the Software Overview page.

The user base and their demand may affect the final schedules.

Current life cycle projection

The development tools developed by us are typically at least 5 years in Production state before entering Legacy. The life cycle is affected by the Linux/Windows platform support.

The Operating System (OS) support provided by us are mainly processor architectural port, BSP and toolchain. Apart from BCC, which is a stand-alone run-time, the OS support adheres to the life cycle of the distributing organization. The toolchains life cycles are described in the next paragraph. The LEON Linux distribution are tracking mainline long term stable ( LTS) releases, for details see Linux page. The VxWorks for LEON distribution follows Wind River's life cycle also aiming to provide long-term support.

Production and Legacy compiler toolchains, based on GCC and LLVM, follows the individual community life cycle by providing updates for our toolchains when updates are available in up-streams stable branches. When communities end of life their software, we limit updates only to include the backend and other fixes are evaluated on per case basis, this is to prolong the life of the toolchain and indicated by Legacy status.

The boot loaders provided are listed below:

 *) See disclaimer section below.

Disclaimer

The software life cycle described in this page reflects our current projection, but it may be updated in the future. As a result, software in Development status may never reach production status, and the Legacy period of a software could be shortened against what is expressed above.

The user base, their demand and migration paths may affect the final schedules, both extending and shortening it.

For more information about life cycle please contact support@gaisler.com.