[spyremeown]

We are slowly getting better at this. Most embedded Linux companies for example have shifted or are in the process of shifting to an upstream-first policy. A lot of the toolchains are open, busybox is used everywhere. A lot of the really good HALs are open source. We're getting there!

[synergy20]

which open source HAL do we have these days? thanks.

[tonyarkles]

I've been using Zephyr lately and have been really enjoying it. It still has the vendor HAL libraries available (e.g. Microchip/Atmel ASF), but the devicetree-based HAL has been fabulous to work with. I've tried a number of different embedded frameworks/RTOSes over the years, but it's the first that I actually feel happy using. There's a few sharp edges for sure, but it's at least an order of magnitude better than anything I've used in the past. One thing that's been particularly good is that the abstractions feel right, and it's allowed our team to collaborate on firmware without constantly tripping each other, because the module boundaries and abstractions are good.

[xsecxtanx]

There is quite a bit of interesting work in the embedded Rust space on this. The embedded-hal project has made some progress on standardizing traits for peripherals and there are some decent HAL crates that have largely adopted those standards. The stm32-hal crates are fantastic.