"DS-5 Application Edition
The new Eclipse-based Development Studio 5 (DS-5) supports ARM Linux development on ARM9, ARM11, and Cortex-A application processors."
http://www.keil.com/pr/article/1201.htm
http://www.keil.com/arm/ds5/
That's currently just for Native Linux and Android development on ARM9, ARM11, and Cortex-A8 - but why maintain 2 totally different IDEs?
Will (something like) this replace uVision-4 for use with all Keil toolchains?
Does this mean that Keil are going to resume support for GCC-based development?
Well, that is my observation.
I've seen several previously proprietary IDEs switch to Eclipse-based; eg, TI's Code Composer Studio.
And several newcomers are starting with something Eclipse-based, rather than roll their own - as would have happened previously.
"Eclipse is an IDE framework..."
Agreed.
"...that allows to quickly crank out half-decent toolchains"
As ever, anything that allows you to "crank out" stuff quickly does also allow you to crank out a load of rubbish very quickly!
From what I've observed, building an IDE within the Eclipse framework is not at all trivial - and it is all too easy to crank-out a piece of junk.
There is currently no intention to drop uVision4. In fact, we plan to maintain and improve uVision4 for several years.
DS-5 is currently only for Linux application development for ARM-processor based silicon. Soon, it will be soon extended to support Linux kernel development.
DS-5 may replace over time RVDS4 (hence we named it DS-5). However this is a long term approach and therefore RVDS4 is and will be the product that supports bare metal development for ARM SoC.
Note: RVDS stands for ARM RealView Development Studio.
I have some issues with uv4, but the nicest thing about it is that once you have a license, it works without any issues (as long as you follow the release notes of course). almost configurations are required, and it gets the jobs done. also, Keil direct access to the guys that write and maintain the best ARM tool chain around is a huge asset.
Just seen another - Freescale have moved their CodeWarrior to Eclipse.