Large parts of eCos were developed concurrently with the development of the configuration technology, or in some cases before design work on that technology was complete. As a consequence the various eCos packages often make only limited use of the available functionality. This situation is expected to change over time. It does mean that many of the descriptions in this guide will not correspond exactly to how the eCos packages work right now, but rather to how they could work. Some of the more extreme discrepancies such as the location of on-line documentation in the component repository will be mentioned in the appropriate places in the guide.
A consequence of this is that developers of new components can look at existing CDL scripts for examples, and discover discrepancies between what is recommended in this guide and what actually happens at present. In such cases this guide should be treated as authoritative.
It is also worth noting that the current component framework is not finished. Various parts of this guide will refer to possible changes and enhancements in future versions. Examining the source code of the configuration tools may reveal hints about other likely developments, and there are many more possible enhancements which only exist at a conceptual level right now.