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Linux Business

Embedded Linux Consortium Officially Launched 35

Posted by Hemos from the getting-standards dept.
Joshua Lamorie writes: "Rick Lehrbaum, the guy behind www.linuxdevices.com, and involved with the PC/104 Consortium has put together a group of heavy hitters from both the embedded world and the Linux world. The press release came out today, and lists the committee members. Also, on the Web site, there are archives of discussions about the creation of the ELC. This adds to the growing excitement about Linux in embedded systems over the past couple of months."
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Embedded Linux Consortium Officially Launched More

Embedded Linux Consortium Officially Launched

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  • Definately a good thing. The embedded market, while potentially one of Linux'es greatest strengths, also has the potential to be a fragmentation threat. This sort of cooperation is an excellent safegaurd against forking. Hopefully, this will bring Lineo, Cygnus, and all the other embedded API players together before they move to far apart.

    BTW, it's the APIs I'm worried about, not the kernel. The interoperability of the core kernel across no less than 9 platforms has convinced me that Linus, Alan, and all the other kernel developers can do portability very well.

  • Embedded Linux (Score:4)

    by robr ( 69609 ) on Thursday March 09, 2000 @04:53PM (#1213642) Homepage
    When I can telnet into my microwave, I'll be happy.

    robr ~:$ telnet microwave.lan
    Trying 10.31.33.7...
    Connected to microwave.lan
    Escape character is '^]'.
    login: root
    password:
    root@nuker ~:# cook 10s cold_pizza
    root@nuker ~:# logout
    Connection closed.
  • Industry leaders launch Embedded Linux Consortium

    Mar. 09, 2000

    San Jose, CA -- (press release) -- Responding to the rising tide of interest in using the Linux operating system in embedded applications, representatives from dozens of embedded technology firms today announced formation of the Embedded Linux Consortium, or ELC, a vendor-neutral trade association dedicated to the advancement of Linux-based solutions in embedded applications. Today's announcement resulted from an organizational meeting held at the Embedded Systems Conference in Chicago, March 1, by representatives from nearly 50 companies.

    During the organizational meeting, the group established a formation committee, appointed interim leadership and adopted an aggressive timetable for formally instituting the ELC as a highly proactive embedded Linux advocacy organization. Funds for the ELC's operation will be based on a schedule of annual dues, which will be developed in the next 30 days. At the meeting, over $100,000 was pledged towards initial funding. Rick Lehrbaum was named interim chairman and Murry Shohat was appointed interim executive director. Lehrbaum is known for his work in establishing the PC/104 Consortium. Shohat is a marketing consultant with extensive trade association experience.

    "The initial intentions for the ELC are very clear," said interim chairman Lehrbaum. "Linux is now the fastest growing operating system for server applications. The embedded computer market -- which absorbs more than 95% of all microcomputer chips minted each year - is the next frontier. In essence, the goal of the ELC will be to amplify the depth, breadth, and speed of Linux adoption in the enormous embedded computer market."

    Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, said "this new Embedded Linux Consortium is an expression of the current explosion of interest in using Linux in thousands of specialized embedded, mobile, and appliance applications. The ELC provides a valuable resource in advancing the growing use of Linux in embedded applications, an area where Linux can provide enormous benefit."

    Paul Zorfass, senior analyst with IDC/FTI, said "Linux has shown the strongest market share growth rate in the bandwidth- and performance-driven server market. Linux is now beginning to establish a presence in the diverse embedded market where its reliability, modularity, scalability, configurability and low cost are extremely attractive. The new Embedded Linux Consortium comes at just the right moment to aid in accelerating the emerging trend of using Linux as the OS within a wide range of intelligent appliances and embedded systems."

    The broad corporate participation in the ELC organizational meeting underscores the exploding interest in using Linux in a wide range of embedded applications and intelligent appliances. The organization will serve to facilitate development of common messages on using Linux in the fast-emerging world of Internet appliances, unattended systems, wireless access, home networks, set-top boxes, and a myriad of other embedded system applications. "Because Linux is open source, it lowers critical barriers of cost, time and risk, making it an ideal software platform for embedded applications," said Lehrbaum.

    Formation committee members, representing firms ranging from startups to Global 500 computer hardware and software companies, include Accelent Systems Inc.; Aisys Inc.; Cendio Systems; Centura Software Corporation; Coollogic; IBM; Infomatec IAS GmbH; Lineo; LinuxDevices.com; Lynx Real-time Systems, Inc.; Microtronix Datacom Ltd.; MontaVista Software, Inc.; Moreton Bay; Motorola Computer Group; NewMonics, Inc.; OpenSystems Publishing; QNX Software Systems Ltd.; Red Hat, Inc.; TimeSys Corporation; Transvirtual Technologies, Inc.; Troll Tech; Wind River Systems, Inc.

    A membership application is located * here *. For membership and general information, please contact Murry Shohat at 707-576-0111, or murry@sonic.net.

    Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?

  • The deceased was found . . . (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    . . . with a Linux embedded in the rear quarter-panel of his skull, lying face-down in the bathroom. Inspector Malvolio squatted on his tail and observed the remains from a low angle. There could be no clear motive, he thought, as the victim was clearly a dwarf. Lost in thought, he pondered the carpet: Atrocious. Perhaps that was the motive. If so, acquittal was assured.

    But perhaps not.

    Perhaps it was not an act of justice, but merely a crime of passion. Perhaps the cowbells, triangles, and woodblocks scattered around the apartment were the key to the whole affair. Perhaps, again, questions should be asked of the unidentified, masked guest even now wiping blood from his hands on a towel. The towel was atrocious. Again, motive? Or coincidence? It was all but unknowable. The Inspecter grew weary of his job. What did it all matter, really?

    Inspector Malvolio wrapped his tail around his legs and scratched a loose scale. Soon he would molt, and then he would estivate. The Guest was molting already, in a refined and unobtrusive way.

    "Dear Guest . . ." intoned the Inspector, "dear Guest, we have much to discuss . . ."

    [to be continued]
  • So far it looks like another specialized portal. I am looking forward to embeded devices running Linux. I have thought about some of the current devices that can run Linux, but I think that I'd prefer one that came with Linux preinstalled. I tried there little search and it looks okay. With places like Linuxtoday, linux.com, slashdot, and all the other Linux portals out there I wonder how much traffic they will actually do. I hope they do well.

    Some of the articles I have seen her on /., or linuxtoday.

    I wish that they had more information on the boards and devices themselves. I am looking for small solutions. I'd love to have a few small computers on my desk each running a different OS. It really only is a new portal.

    I have found some interesting things on there site though that may actually seperate them from the rest. They actually show hardware for embedded devices. I will definately be looking into this for my tiny devices needs.

    send flames > /dev/null

  • No doubt there is a big future for embedded Linux! I think one of the most interesting things to see is the players who have come to the table to see it succeeds. The group is filled with RTOS vendors and also strong players in the embedded Java market. Noticeably absent is Sun Microsystems. Probably their desire to promote Solaris plus their incomplete embedded Java story will keep them away from this consortium. Given the baggage they bring with the heinous Sun Community License this is probably a good thing. Fundamental aspects of the Linux OS need to be changed in order to make it a true embedded microkernel. Hopefully, the partners involved in this effort can come to the table and work out a way for this to happen while keeping the source open and free.

  • Re:Embedded Linux (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder how strong a password the average home user will have on their microwave. This could be even more fun than sending porn to the neighbor's printer! Now see, in the DOS world, you insert a floppy and use it. Maybe if your microwave ran embedded DOS, it would be a quick "cook" command and you'd be done. This isn't that simple! You need to mount the magnetron, load the turntable motor control values, enable them both, and wait... ...Then cron turns off the magnetron for you and sends you a message. You come back, stop the turntable, unmount the whole business, and send a SIGOPENDOOR to the latch mechanism.
  • I've watched his methods in the market since the days of the Ampro Little Board 1-A. He's excellent at pulling together consensus in the fuzzy corners of the embedded market, after which you don't hear news about that area because there's no further controversy, there's just solidly made products by a number of vendors competing on features and cooperating on standards.

    This means that Embedded Linux will fragment freely, as it must to fill adjacent niches, but it won't fracture.

  • above is funny funny! mod up! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    You need to mount the magnetron, load the turntable motor control values, enable them both

    yeah, but you could write a perl script to cook a whole dinner. you'd need one of them hacked barney dolls to put food into the nuker and take it out again. or fucking aibo. no doubt you could drag legos into it and set up a whole bank of nukers as a beowulf cluster :)

    some idiot will run a web server on his microwave. and slashdot will run a story about it.
  • Plenty. I've also had bad experiences. I keep a database of em, so when they pull up their file on me I can pull up my file on them. The turkeys don't stop calling, but they don't get anything. The good ones earn their cut by filtering out the turkey gigs for me, letting me concentrate on what I do best, and putting up with me.
  • I hate to go off-topic, but since the <rant> seems to be directed at me, I thought I'd weigh in with a $.02 for my company.

    Catalyst Recruiting is not a recruiting agency, we are a database company. We maintain a database of candidates for jobs, and provide employers with advanced search tools to find the candidates that best meet their needs. Thus, we do NOT promote anybody to anybody else, rather we provide an information service.

    Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?

  • "Refract" rather than "fragment"... the center DOES hold.

  • cool (Score:1)

    by rbf ( 2305 )
    So when can I buy a toaster with Linux inside?

    rbf aka pulsar
  • When I can telnet into my microwave, I'll be happy.

    I'm surprised someone hasn't sacrificed an old 486 to do this yet! Some newer microwaves already come with a fancy LCD panel that can display simple bitmap graphics and stuff. X would be a little rough on it, but I'm sure it could be done. You might want to add a robotic arm that can reach over to the fridge and grab your pizza, so you don't even have to get up until it's ready. The only problem I see is AOL cds mysteriously vanishing from the pile in the corner and somehow ending up nuking themselves...
  • I've been working with embedded systems for about 8 years now, and this is really the sort of thing that the industry needs.

    Many people only know about the Microsoft that dominates the desktop and server OS markets, but don't realize that they're also working VERY hard to take over the embedded systems market. At the low end (sorta), there's CE (or pocket Windows or whatever), and at the high end, there's Embedded NT, which finally launched a month or two ago.

    I can see how MS has been so successful - the embedded industry is very fragmented, and the tools are often quite archaic.

    I happen to use a non-MS RTOS that I quite like, but I've seen the company that sells it sink and suffer ever since MS arrived on the block. I'm worried about what to do if/when MS stomps them out of existence. It doesn't help when the PHB asks why we can't just use Windows for the OS in our product (reason one: 3MB RAM available).

    I've been following the embedded linux buzz for the past year or so, and I see it as a savior to hundreds of developers who are in the same position that I'm in.

    = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = =

    PS - Any programmers with embedded and/or linux experience lookin' for work in the North SF Bay area? Contact me at "glonq at hotmail dot com".

  • Since when do you have to put the port number in during telnet? It defaults to 23, which is ta-da, exactly the port the telnet server defaults to.

  • Embedded Linux - wrong answer? (Score:4)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday March 09, 2000 @09:15PM (#1213667) Homepage
    I'm not that thrilled about "embedded Linux", especially for real-time work. Wrong tool for the job. You usually want a real-time OS, like VXworks [vxworks.com] or QNX. [qnx.com] There's RT/Linux [rtlinux.com], but it's an awful hack; the real-time processes run unprotected in kernel mode.

    There's a real need for an open-source real-time protected-mode operating system, but Linux, or any UNIX variant, isn't it. L4 [tu-dresden.de] has real potential, but it's not finished yet. Already you can run Linux on top of L4. If you're into embedded open-source real-time, get behind L4 and push.

  • A real time system meets deadlines - guaranteed.

    With absolutely no missed ones.

    REAL TIME does NOT mean fast. Known timing is the goal.

    No Unix was written with that goal in mind, therefore the original post was right.

    Please consider moderating the original post up!

    Best regards,
    Niels Krisian Jensen
    Denmark.

    P.S: Linux will still be a good platform for the larger part of most systems, which is not real time critical, e.g. HMI (Human-Machine Interface).

  • ELKS? (Score:2)

    by Ed Avis ( 5917 )

    What about ELKS [soton.ac.uk]? It's probably the oldest of the 'embeddable' Linux projects, but you don't see any press releases mentioning it.

  • Formation committee members, representing firms ranging from startups to Global 500 computer hardware and software companies, include Accelent Systems Inc.; Aisys Inc.; Cendio Systems; Centura Software Corporation; Coollogic; IBM; Infomatec IAS GmbH; Lineo; LinuxDevices.com; Lynx Real-time Systems, Inc.; Microtronix Datacom Ltd.; MontaVista Software, Inc.; Moreton Bay; Motorola Computer Group; NewMonics, Inc.; OpenSystems Publishing; QNX Software Systems Ltd.; Red Hat, Inc.; TimeSys Corporation; Transvirtual Technologies, Inc.; Troll Tech; Wind River Systems, Inc.


    I missed this when I looked at the www.linuxdevices.com page (I just had my morning coffee and the caffine hasn't kicked in yet). This is damn good news: the company I work for signed a large-ish contract with Wind River over a year ago. At that time, we asked about support for Wind River tools under Linux (i.e. hosting Tornado development under Linux). At that time, we were told "it's in the works, it'll be here RSN". Great! We can get rid of our WinNT boxes. Guess what? No Linux support for Tornado yet.


    Tornado, for those of you how aren't embedded software developers, is Wind River's development toolset for their real time OS, VxWorks. IMHO, having worked with both Linux and VxWorks, VxWorks is great for a) Hard real-time (I must service this interrupt in 150 nsec DAMMIT) or b) small devices (tens of kBytes to hundreds of k). However, when you do the embedded megabyte monsters I do, VxWorks tops out and won't do the job. Also, I've had problems getting WRS to solve issues with their code. My next project will be Linux based for the GUI side.


    The point of all this is that I'm surprise that WRS would support Linux moving into the embedded market at a target: whether they believe it or not, Linux is a competitor to VxWorks.

  • Embedded linux is the wrong answer if you're looking for hard realtime, but the need for that sort of thing seems to be diminishing nowadays.

    Linux will be well suited for folks who need decent, non-deterministic performance, who want to avoid stinky, proprietary dev tools, and who want to save a few bucks.

    The last time I checked, the licence fees for QNX were at least 10x those of Lineo's Embedix (haven't checked out Blue Cat or any other embedded linuxes yet, though.)

  • Have you looked at RTEMS [rtems.com] lately? It is real time, has a TCP/IP stack, and all source is available (although I'm not sure if it's "open source"). It is maintained by the Army so it's pretty much public domain. It compiles under gcc nicely. The EFI332 [buffalostate.edu] group is using it to build a fuel-injection system.

    -tim
  • I am working on a FibreChannel adapter that uses the I2O (Intelligent I/O) model. We are currently using WindRiver's IxWorks for StrongArm but as part of our next design we are looking at other solutions. As you might imagine, speed is critical. We looked into using a Linux or BSD based system and found that an open Linux/BSD solution was better than a proprietary solution. The only problem was it required so much customization that we found writing our own system from scratch could give us a better, more specific solution in about the same amount of development time. I suspect that in a world where resources are scarce and every clock cycle matters, a lot of companies are going to find that a general (although customizable) solution like Linux will have trouble competing with a completly specific solution. Companies that do not have the technical resources to start from scratch will find Linux attractive but for companies like mine where we have people that have a lot of operating system and specifically mission critical system development experience, Linux/BSD does't provide a real edge.
    Linux may work well for cable boxes, digital video recorders, and PDAs but can it run a FibreChannel adapter? How about a realtime system to be used in manufacturing? I think that it can do it but each of these situations and many others require so much customization that it begs the question, "Why not just do it from scratch?"
  • The biggest problem with embedded MS and what will kill them in this market is their high resource demands and relative instability of their OS base. For toys like a cable box, MS can do pretty well. If it crashes, just flip it on and off. For something like a FibreChannel adapter or Gigabit Network adapter (both of which I have worked on) I can't imagine CE or Emb.NT making the grade. RealTime NT is a long way off from being a real choice. Without source access, it isn't customizable. That means it has to be very general in order to meet the demands of all their customers. How can this compete with an open source project where I company can create a stripped down solution that only has what the need in the way that they need it.

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