RFC : Heap management using TLSF

[Tim]

Hi all

The idea of inserting a 3rd party malloc replacement has cropped up on
the list a couple of times, TLSF in particular, and I was hoping to get
some feedback on a serious effort toward using it as the default malloc
implementation in RTEMS.

Here's the pitch. It's designed specifically to meet realtime
requirements. ie 

* Low, bounded reponse time.
* Low fragmentation.

Why take my word for it when you can scope out the website I just
summarised ;P

http://rtportal.upv.es/rtmalloc/

Performance improvements aside, the project is mature and actively
maintained. The code base is compact, tidy, and portable.

It appears to be used in some other RT installations of note: RTAI,
RTLinux-GPL, and Xenomai, for example.

I'm happy to do the work, but might need some tips on the best way to
integrate with the RTEMS codebase: for example, a mechanism to ease
migration (read: RTEMS users confidence :D) using a configuration switch
(a la "--enable-allocator-tlsf").

As usual, thoughts and comments would be gratefully received.

Cheers,
Tim