On Feb 7, 2008, at 1:34 AM, Mike Harrison wrote:

> Who is likely to do a better job at devtools - a semi maker whose  
> main business is making chips, or a 3rd party whose main business  
> is making devtools?
>

Well, sure.  But the original complaint is against Atmel tools for  
AVR, so it's hardly fair to compare that (free, manufacturer- 
supplied) toolset against an expensive 3rd party toolset.  Rather  
than go to a new processor, the first step should be to go to a new  
toolset for the old processor.

I would normally hope that a chip manufacturer would provide a  
certain number of working tools for their chips, even if that only  
means having hired someone to collect, patch, and package the  
appropriate versions of open source tools.  As Dave's frustrations  
indicate, "working" is more important than "fancy."

As for freescale, there are certainly plenty of open source tools  
once you get to their larger CPUs (coldfire, ppc)

BillW

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