If you are new to Open Source we suggest that you start by reading a few web sites around. Here we provide a short introductory reading suggestions:

• Open source software, wikipedia
• Difference, free software and open source, GNU
• Links to software mentioned below

Ã…AC have selected to build its commercial Plug-and-Play products on open source and free tools. Since Open Source software is open, all of the defects and security flaws are easily found. Open source allows the customers to either use the precompiled and verfied libraries and tools from Ã…AC, or they can choose to compile their own from the available source code. Ã…AC doesn't force customers into licensing schemes for debuggers, compilers, or proprietary drivers. Ã…AC renders its value from high quality products and strictly checked software which saves the customers time from going through the source code themselves and finding incompatibalities.

Ã…AC uses IP available under LGPL, BSD, and GPL licenses that everyone can download from Open Cores to play with. Ã…AC make sure that the IPs included in their products are verified and tested to the high level of maturity needed for stable mission critical applications. In addition, Ã…AC have developed fault tolerant processors which are not provided as Open Source for aerospace and other highly mission critical applications. These includes a 32 bit OpenRISC 1200 processor (Ã…AC OpenRISC 1200-Fault Tolerant) and a PIC16F84 processor (Ã…AC PIC16F84 Fault Tolerant).

Ã…AC support well known open source libraries with solid maintainance, such as GNU Debugger Project (GDB), the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), and LINUX operating system. For PIC the shareware compiler Source Boost C is used (where a license is needed for full nanoRTUâ„¢ 211/212 functionality due to increase memory space). However, the free version works well with the products and only limits the memory space.

Compared to other solutions on the market, you are not charged a royalty on your product sales and you can update your software whenevery you want (or download certified updates freely from Ã…AC). The debugger is also completely free.