OpenEmbedded and The Yocto Project

The relationship between OpenEmbedded and the Yocto Project confuses many people. If you have questions, mail them to board@openembedded.org and we will try to add answers here.

Why two organizations?

Without going into a lot of history, the straight forward answer is that; OpenEmbedded is the organization representing the developers who created the OpenEmbedded build system many years ago. It is a stand alone organization that is also a Software in the Public Interest associated project (SPI provides financial services). The Yocto Project is a Linux Foundation project. The Linux Foundation is an organization serving its corporate members. OpenEmbedded will continue to serve the needs of the OpenEmbedded developers and larger community of people using OpenEmbedded.

Yocto Project Membership

The Yocto Project has substantial expenses maintaining the QA autobuilders and paying a couple of people working on the project. These are paid by project members. For companies under 500 people, Linux Foundation Membership + Yocto Project membership costs 15,000 - 20,000 US dollars.