Often at conventions I am asked how Meld Software Development Kits (SDK) based on MontaVista Linux (MVL) fit within the Embedded Linux ecosystem given that MontaVista specializes in the commercialization of Linux.

To begin, nothing within the Meld SDK is proprietary. While an SDK is assembled from an existing MVL Market Specific Distribution (MSD), the toolchain and build environment are open source. We can talk more about tools in a minute, let’s back to content.

Another key difference between a MVL MSD purchased from MontaVista, and a Meld SDK is that MontaVista actively supports, updates, and most importantly tests MVL MSDs. In contrast, Meld SDKs are supported through the Meld community Discussion forums. Meld members help other members solve problems with SDKs.

Now back to tools. As of June 2011, MontaVista has released the content-tools project to the community. Content-tools are used in conjunction with BitBake and OpenEmbedded (OE) to manage content within a project. Combined with an SDK, content-tools allows a developer to generate collections that will easily integrate into the framework that OE provides. Please watch Meld.org over the next month for tutorials on using content-tools.