FlashFS source gone in release 4.20

Has anyone else noticed that Keil seem not to be supplying the source for FlashFS?
It was in versions prior to version 4.20. Notice the new paragraph in the click-through license!

(Another thread comments also about USB source disappearing)

Time to use a different FlashFS, come to think of it, what is the need for RL-ARM license as the RTX source is included now in all MDK-ARM (ref: http://www.keil.com/arm/rl-arm/kernel.asp, bottom of page).

- Phil

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  • I think Keil staff are busy shooting themselves in their feet with really big guns right now.

    For some reason, they don't seem to realize the very critical need to have access to source code.

    We can normally live with not having full sources to the C RTL, since in case we get into troubles we can find many free implementations of specific features.

    While most companies would feel comfortable designing trivial things like lamp timers without full source code to target-specific functionality, more complex or critical devices will require source.

    What company wants to invest many millions into critical while not being sure that they have access to the source code so that they can produce over-night critical hot-fixes if needed. Just failing a weekly shipment of 10k units could cost huge amounts of money, besides the goodwill losses from not being able to supply units to large and very influential customers.

    And in some situations, a notified body - or a huge customer - may require that they can come and visit and look at development documents, source code, testing, fault processing routines etc. When human safety is involved, it isn't enough to tell that Keil has the source code and that there are unknown source code changes between two Keil releases.

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  • I think Keil staff are busy shooting themselves in their feet with really big guns right now.

    For some reason, they don't seem to realize the very critical need to have access to source code.

    We can normally live with not having full sources to the C RTL, since in case we get into troubles we can find many free implementations of specific features.

    While most companies would feel comfortable designing trivial things like lamp timers without full source code to target-specific functionality, more complex or critical devices will require source.

    What company wants to invest many millions into critical while not being sure that they have access to the source code so that they can produce over-night critical hot-fixes if needed. Just failing a weekly shipment of 10k units could cost huge amounts of money, besides the goodwill losses from not being able to supply units to large and very influential customers.

    And in some situations, a notified body - or a huge customer - may require that they can come and visit and look at development documents, source code, testing, fault processing routines etc. When human safety is involved, it isn't enough to tell that Keil has the source code and that there are unknown source code changes between two Keil releases.

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