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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<chapter id="chapter_introduction">
  <title>Introduction</title>

  <section id="intro_overview">
    <title>Overview</title>

    <para>Like any build tool (make, ant, jam), the OpenEmbedded build tool
    BitBake controls how to build things and the build dependencies. But
    unlike single project tools like <command>make</command> it is not based
    on one makefile or a closed set of inter-dependent makefiles, but collects
    and manages an open set of largely independent build descriptions (package
    recipes) and builds them in proper order.</para>

    <para>To be more precise: <ulink
    url="http://www.openembedded.org"><application>OpenEmbedded</application></ulink>
    is a set of metadata used to cross-compile, package and install software
    packages. <application>OpenEmbedded</application> is being used to build
    and maintain a number of embedded Linux distributions, including
    OpenZaurus, &Aring;ngstr&ouml;m, Familiar and SlugOS.</para>

    <para>The primary use-case of <application>OpenEmbedded</application> are:
    <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>Handle cross-compilation.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Handle inter-package dependencies</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Must be able to emit packages (tar, rpm, ipk)</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Must be able to create images and feeds from packages</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Must be highly configurable to support many machines,
          distribution and architectures.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Writing of metadata must be easy and reusable</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist></para>

    <para>Together with <ulink
    url="http://bitbake.berlios.de/manual"><application>BitBake</application></ulink>,
    OpenEmbedded satisfies all these and many more. Flexibility and power have
    always been the priorities.</para>
  </section>

  <section id="intro_history">
    <title>History</title>

    <para>OpenEmbedded was invented and founded by the creators of the
    OpenZaurus project. At this time the project had pushed
    <emphasis>buildroot</emphasis> to its limits. It supported the creation of
    <emphasis>ipk</emphasis> packages, feeds and images and had support for
    more than one machine. But it was impossible to use different patches,
    files for different architectures, machines or distributions. To overcome
    this shortcoming OpenEmbedded was created.</para>

    <para>After a few months other projects started using OpenEmbedded and
    contributing back. On 7 December 2004 Chris Larson split the project into
    two parts: BitBake, a generic task executor and OpenEmbedded, the metadata
    for BitBake.</para>
  </section>
</chapter>