Difference between Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded?

Question

On Yocto Project FAQ:

The Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded share a core collection of metadata called openembedded-core. However, the two organizations remain separate, each with its own focus. OpenEmbedded provides a comprehensive set of metadata for a wide variety of architectures, features, and applications. The Yocto Project focuses on providing powerful, easy-to-use, interoperable, well-tested tools, metadata, and board support packages (BSPs) for a core set of architectures and specific boards.

I still not getting nothing clear. The two frameworks are meant to build Linux distributions. But I would like to know on what they are distinct specifically. Not only techically but also objectivly, so I can argue why to choose one or another.

Moreover, why Yocto has so much prominence? altough OE being the first build framework.

ps: I have worked with Yocto Project, but not with OE.

Ruperto

YP and OE can't be separated completely since YP includes OE in some extent. elinux.org/images/d/de/Elc2011_kooi.pdf – Granjon

See this video, it's a good summary: youtube.com/… – Ostensive

Answer 1

The key point is that the Yocto Project is a community/organisation, and not something you can buy/download/install.

Some of the things that the Yocto Project works on includes bitbake (the build tool), OpenEmbedded Core (the essential recipes to build systems, such as glibc/gcc/systemd), some BSPs, and tooling/services (error reporting service, autobuilder, etc).

The OpenEmbedded community predates Yocto and at the time had a different focus, but now we both contribute to the same projects so there's no real difference.

Wingo

So OE per se can't be used to build a Linux system, it only provides recipes -> used by Yocto and ? Could u pls tell more about OE past? What was the initial and which is the present goal? – Ruperto

Well, when people say "I used OE" they mean "I used the OpenEmbedded metadata and Bitbake", which is the same as Yocto. – Wingo

For example qt5-project (github.com/meta-qt5/meta-qt5) says that it depends on openembedded-core, and bellow says that it is YOCTO project compatible. Does it mean that I can use either one of those 2 projects? It is really not clear for newbie like me. I've thought that I had to have both of those projects. – Carincarina

Yocto Project Compatible means that the layer passes the tests required to get that certification. If you're downloading something and calling it 'yocto' then that by definition contains openembedded-core. – Wingo