Scratchbox Deployment on Enterprise Level

1. Benefits

The Scratchbox SDK is an environment to facilitate cross-platform Linux development. It provides a development environment for the embedded target that closely resembles the one used for traditional desktop development. Developers can use most of the tools that they are already familiar with, and get started with productive application development very quickly.

For a company committed to Linux, the deployment costs of the SDK are very low since licenses, special hardware, or additional training are not required. The developers get familiar with the SDK very fast, generally just within a few weeks.

Scratchbox also makes it easy to share a limited number of target devices among multiple developers.

2. Concept Acceptance

Deployment procedures on the company level fully depend on the company's commitment to Linux. Benefits of the SDK are very clear and easily accepted by the management of a company committed to Linux, provided that Open Source Software (OSS) and its possibilities are generally familiar. In these companies, the SDK as a concept can also be expected to be warmly welcomed by the developers, since it is fully under GPL (General Public License) and thus complements the ever-growing selection of freely available tools and applications.

The situation is quite different if the company has not focused on Linux, has no Linux development teams and no understanding of the Open Source Software concepts and tools. In this case, the cost to ramp up that knowledge can be considered high. Building the understanding will be required on every level. That very easily results in deployment resistance on several organizatorial levels and makes attempts to utilize the SDK difficult.