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Red Hat Software Software Businesses Linux

Wind River Partners With Red Hat On Embedded Linux 134

Posted by simoniker from the embed-this dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to LinuxDevices: 'Calling embedded Linux and VxWorks 'the standards in device software development,' Wind River today announced a dual operating system strategy that adds a newly developed embedded Linux distribution -- Red Hat Embedded Linux -- alongside its proprietary VxWorks real-time operating system.'"
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Wind River Partners With Red Hat On Embedded Linux More

Wind River Partners With Red Hat On Embedded Linux

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  • Where next? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) *
    So RedHat has dropped the desktop, is moving into the enterprise and now the embedded market? Where can it go next?

    Rus

    • Re:Where next? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sn0wman3030 ( 618319 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:37PM (#8367809) Homepage Journal
      Redhat hasn't dropped the desktop. If anything, it's stronger on the desktop now that it's called Fedora because it's managed by the community. The sky's the limit man. :)

    • Re:Where next? (Score:4, Informative)

      by globalar ( 669767 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:42PM (#8367879) Homepage
      " So RedHat has dropped the desktop..."

      I don't think they want to drop the coporate desktop. It seems that is where companies like MS made a lot of money. When Linux catches on there, I assume Redhat wants to be the cheaper alternative with a strong brand name.

      Still, I suspect the embedded market is growing with healthly profit margins. Redhat has been interested in this market for a while. I think they bought eCos [sourceware.org] around 1999 [com.com]. It was already open source (they really bought Cygnus which developed eCos).
    • I thought Red Hat dropped the embedded systems market a while ago when they said as much. They dropped RCOS and RHEL a couple of years ago, according to my memory. I was using RHEL at the time, on an Altera Excalibur PLD / ARM micrprocessor chip. I was reading about the dropping of RCOS and the dropping of RHEL, but I don't remember any references. Some of what I read was on their website (developer part).

      I have a feeling they don't know which market they support. Dropping the consumer desktop was a bit of

  • Business plan du jour (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) * on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:26PM (#8367700) Homepage Journal
    What happened to BSD? It wasn't that long ago that Wind River announced that BSD was the wave of the future.
    • The real problem is rooting out the fads. Remember synergy, consumer centricity, and Microsoft Windows?

      • Re:Business plan du jour (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The real problem is rooting out the fads. Remember synergy, consumer centricity,

        I once asked our vp marketing about that. He full agreed and said that it's really about exploiting leading-edge methodologies, harnessing cutting-edge paradigms and matrixing world-class web services.
    • It seems that the mainstream (as far as hackers and programmers go, not everyone) portion of BSD has gone to the show of MAC OS X.

      FreeBSD is still awesome though. w00t!

    • Re:Business plan du jour (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymovs Coward ( 724746 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:49PM (#8367948)
      Indeed, Wind River had bought BSDi, which had earlier bought Walnut Creek and acquired close ties with FreeBSD; thus quite a few FreeBSD developers ended up working with Wind River. But the honeymoon didn't last long... I have no idea what went wrong. But even now they claim ownership [windriver.com] of the BSD, BSD/OS and FreeBSD trademarks... There has been a long-term plan for the FreeBSD Foundation to get control of the trademark, but I don't know where that's at.
    • 1. Market BSD/OS, an OS that's used by ISPs.
      2. Sell it to an embedded systems dealer.
      3. Profit, but the OS goes to hell.

      Meanwhile ISPs keep using BSD/OS [netcraft.com]

    • It wasn't that long ago that Wind River announced that BSD was the wave of the future.


      But, after reading Slashdot, they realized BSD was dying...

    • Traditionally, the biggest competitor to vxWorks (by far) in the embedded space are home-grown OSes. Now some of those people are moving to Linux and getting a robust, full featured OS for free. Perhaps teaming up with RedHat is an attempt to at least sell SOMETHING to these people, namely a toolset (Tornado IDE).

    • Re:Business plan du jour (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I've seen source code to both vxWorks and pSOS operating systems from Windriver. They both contain an enormous amount of BSD code. It's cobbled together poorly and sometimes very basic functionality doesn't even work right. However, after spending a few years with pSOS, vxWorks is certainly a breath of fresh air. Still, they should realize that developing embedded software is not point-and-click stuff. Get rid of Tornado!!! And although you can purchase a license to see the source code for their OS, i

      • Re:Business plan du jour (Score:4, Informative)

        by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) * on Monday February 23, 2004 @09:16PM (#8369414) Homepage Journal
        It's cobbled together poorly and sometimes very basic functionality doesn't even work right. [...] And although you can purchase a license to see the source code for their OS, it's cost prohibitive for a lot of companies, and development is stunted until you have it.
        I've worked for companies with vxWorks source licenses, and fully agree. Both companies had huge problems with the vxWorks networking, and one company ended up licensing a TCP/IP stack from a different vendor. Part of my job was gluing that stack to Wind River's device drivers.
  • It's just not the same now that they ditched us desktop Linux users.

    Now their main business is selling overpriced licenses for their "enterprise" Linux distribution, which really isn't all that much more bulletproof than most Linux kernels/applications out there.

    Sure, I love Linux, but I think the tides may turn away from Red Hat. Gentoo anyone?

    • Re:I fear for Red Hat (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The high cost of Red Hat enterprise Linux is really for the the round the clock support. I don't think Gentoo developers would be very interested in doing 24x7 customer support service for free?

      Besides I don't see much harm in what Red Hat is doing. Nearly all software distributed by Red Hat is open source. Red Hat is getting corporations to pay for the development of kernel code, gcc, glibc, gnome software, documentation and we all benefit in the end! It helps pay for great hackers to do what to like to d
    • " It's just not the same now that they ditched us desktop Linux users.

      See subject title.

      "Now their main business is selling overpriced licenses for their "enterprise" Linux distribution, which really isn't all that much more bulletproof than most Linux kernels/applications out there."

      Overpriced as opposed to what? A free distro like debian with no real support?

      "Sure, I love Linux, but I think the tides may turn away from Red Hat."

      Who knows. But it isn't yet.

      "Gentoo anyone?"

      God no.
    • Try cAos [centos.org]. Basically Red Hat enterprise version but not built by Red Hat, if I understand correctly.

  • Oooh . . . does that mean we get Linux on Mars? (Score:3, Funny)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:28PM (#8367728)
    I suspect that Linux's file system is a bit more robust than what they used on the rovers.

  • advantages of embedded linux? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 7Ghent ( 115876 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:31PM (#8367763) Homepage
    Apart from ease of porting preexisting applications, does embedded Linux have any advantages whatsoever over say QNX or TRON?
    • I can't believe they wouldn't use QNX, with their impressive (although rarely recognized) track record.

      Somewhere I've got that home client they let you download ... never did try it out.

    • Re:advantages of embedded linux? (Score:5, Informative)

      by El ( 94934 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:48PM (#8367937)
      oes embedded Linux have any advantages whatsoever over say QNX or TRON?Yes, it's a heck of a lot easier to port Open Source applications to, so you don't have to write all your code from scratch. Also, it's oriented towards protected address spaces for each process, unlike vxWorks or pSOS. On the down side, most people consider it to have a larger memory footprint -- but then, memory is cheap and getting cheaper (that's what keeps Microsoft in business!)

      • Re:advantages of embedded linux? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23, 2004 @07:03PM (#8368070)
        I'm suprized to see you say this. I strongly suspect you don't use QNX or do embedded deveopment...

        Just for kicks, I'm running Firebird on QNX. I've got an project using an small footprint open source webserver and mySQL. I build my embedded projects with gcc, coded with emacs. For profiling and debugging I use their version of the Eclipse IDE -- the open source IDE that has had a massive amount of source contributed by QNX. In fact I bet you 10 bucks that WindRiver's new Linux tools will actually be using QNX's tools, just rebranded.

        -my2cents
      • "Most people consider it to have a larger memory footprint"? Um, I've gotten vxWorks down to about 16 KB, IIRC (of course, that was just the task scheduler and semaphores - no drivers, not even serial ports). But I have my doubts that you can get embedded Linux down that low...
      • And why wouldn't most open source projects port to QNX about as easily as anything else, especially if we're talking about embedded applications?
    • Hard real-time embedded Linux is still something of a hack. RTLinux isn't protected mode; the real-time code is loaded into kernel space. (Neither is VxWorks. QNX runs user programs, networking, and drivers as protected mode programs.)

      The preemptive kernel work has made the user-space real time variants of Linux, like Hard Hat Linux from MonteVista, more competitive. Vendors now claim worst-case interrupt latencies under 1ms, which is far better than it used to be. But they usually mean interrupt lat

  • "The Standards" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:39PM (#8367831)
    My boss likes to say things about "The Standards". In her worldview, anything is the best choice for any given situation if it's "The Industry Standard". That phrase is practically sacred to her. The only reason we're not running Windows (her favourite OS) on our servers is because in her perception, "The Industry Standard" for large Web sites is Solaris on SPARC hardware. But the instant her businessperson friends start saying how wonderful Win2K3 on Compaq servers is, she'll probably be listing our Sun Enterprise servers on eBay...

    After so many years in the tech field, I'm starting to get really really wary of people who say such glowing things about "The Standards". It seems to be a thinly-veiled way of saying "What Everybody Else Is Doing". In the 1800s, "The Standard" way of life for a wealthy white Southerner in the US would include the ownership of slaves. And "The Standard" in industrialised Western nations was, of course, for women (and blacks) to not have the right to vote.

    The point of my little screed is-- if the best defence a company has for their products/services/actions/lack of actions is that they are "the standard"... well, it either shows a severe lack of imagination, or an adherence to "this is today's fad; tomorrow, the fad may be different" mentality. The same sort of mentality that hardcore gamers demonstrate, when one year they get the WhizBang(R) CyberWhatever(TM) 3000 AGP card with 128MB of RAM and are all "wow, look at me", and the next year, they wouldn't be caught dead with anything less than a WhizBang(R) CyberWhatever(TM) Pro 5000 AGP card with 256MB of RAM... Because, I mean, the Pro 5000 is "The Standard" now, and anyone with less is "obviously a limpdicked little fagot" (sic). (End sarcasm)...

    Companies that speak of "The Standard", to me, reek of rat-race-ism, and-- to be frank-- of pure faddishness. Remember: "The Standard" == "What everyone else is doing". And "everyone else" is running Windows on their x86 hardware, and we all know how sterling an example of quality engineering either of those things are... (no flames, please)
    • Hey, you're trying to rant about "The Standards", but you only managed to rant about de-facto standards. If you want to rant about all standards, including de-jure standards, throw in some comments on the OSI networking stack and how succesful everyone who used it was.

      • Re:"The Standards" (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mekkab ( 133181 ) *
        Whats funny is that when I mention that two of my projects have a 7 layer networking protocol stack I get slammed by slashbots saying "no stupid! Its only a MODEL to analyze network communications! Its not a protocol stack!"

        Uhm, I've got 100kloc of kernel code and a room full of standards verification test documentation that says different!
    • And "everyone else" is running Windows on their x86 hardware, and we all know how sterling an example of quality engineering either of those things are... (no flames, please)

      Dude, look around. You see any flames coming your way here?

    • Re:"The Standards" (Score:4, Funny)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:56PM (#8368006) Journal
      In the 1800s, "The Standard" way of life for a wealthy white Southerner in the US would include the ownership of slaves. And "The Standard" in industrialised Western nations was, of course, for women (and blacks) to not have the right to vote.

      Errr, isn't comparing vxWorks to slavery a little bit over the top?

      • You've never developed for VxWorks, have you? (tongue firmly in cheek...)

    • Re:"The Standards" (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      No you fucktard, your boss is making sure that what the company is doing isn't so unique that it puts an unnecessary dependency on the IT staff. The standard is usually cheaper to support and ensures that the company can replace an unruly asshole like you when needed.

    • In the 1800s, "The Standard" way of life for a wealthy white Southerner in the US would include the ownership of slaves.



      You're right. Using Windows is like slavery.

    • erm, most people in the south DIDN'T own slaves. But the people who DID own slaves were the top guys in the economy and in politics: the majority of the south was relatively poor.

      Even today, the economy is driven by the upper class (politics, too, but not to as much of an extent as it used to be). Guess what percentage of people in the U.S. earn over $100,000 a year? 1.5%.
      Now, look at how much of the economy they control: 70%. Seems pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? 1.5% of a country

  • It'll be interesting to watch as this develops... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:44PM (#8367899)
    First they "acquired" Slackware. And then sold it off/gave it away after doing nothing with it. Then they "acquired" BSD and have done little with it. Now they have linked up with RedHat for embedded Linux tools?

    When WindRiver Systems (WRS) came in several years ago to give a presentation on their strategies for Tornado and VxWorks products we were disappointed. After two hours of the pain and agony of learning nothing we didn't already know, we asked "where's the beef"? (old expression, but I think you "get it") They told us their entire strategy was to become a $1BILLION company inside of a year. Some strategy, eh?

    Our experience is that WRS provides marginal support on the VxWorks products, and have made a mess of their licensing systems and servers (that track tools use and enforce their payment structures). Let's hope WRS doesn't take away from the strength of the Open Source community, the tools development it undertakes, and the great support it gives...
    • First they "acquired" Slackware.

      I don't think so. BSDi acquired Walnut Creek, who maintained both Slackware and FreeBSD. BSDi wasn't interested in Slackware and got rid of it. Later, Wind River acquired BSDi.

      • Blame Wind River (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It was Wind River that didn't want Slackware. BSDi not only kept Slackware to the end, but Slackware was also briefly associated with ixSystems (the last bit of BSDi that remained after Wind River pillaged them, and still remains today I think).

        It wouldn't surprise me if this deal is not the "step three profit" that Wind River expects. After that, maybe they'll go the SCO route and claim to own everything. I certainly wouldn't touch any code submissions from them with a ten-foot-pole.
    • They told us their entire strategy was to become a $1BILLION company inside of a year

      When did Dr Evil acquire them? I must've missed the memo...
    • First they "acquired" Slackware. And then sold it off/gave it away after doing nothing with it. Then they "acquired" BSD and have done little with it. Now they have linked up with RedHat for embedded Linux tools?

      This actually looks like a brilliant scheme. By the latest legal theories, each of the technologies that they aquire gives them ownership over that technology, its predecessors, its derivatives and everything that it influenced. It looks like they've already amassed an IP collection of SCOian pro

  • Red Hat Press Release (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:48PM (#8367928)
    Since Wind River's site apparently runs on an embedded platform, you can read about Red Hat and Wind River Partner to Develop Linux Based Solution for Device Software Optimization [redhat.com] from Red Hat's site instead.

  • They have been in bed with evryone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stanbrown ( 724448 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:48PM (#8367931) Homepage
    In the past 5 r so years, Wind River has announce grand "startegic aliances" with everyone (with the possible exception of M$) that has ahd there 30 seconds of fame. I even rember back whne they sold a C compiler for various early *NIX machines on teh 70's. I suppose they do OK, but they are certainly not great "geussers of teh future direction" of things!

  • What does that mean to VxWorks? (Score:5, Informative)

    by GPLDAN ( 732269 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:48PM (#8367932)
    Here are the things that WR ships when you go to use VxWorks for your embedded system project:

    Components Included

    Development tools:

    TORNADO Integrated Development Environment
    GNU and DIAB C/C++ Compilers
    WIND VIEW system analyzer
    SNiFF+ PRO code visualization tool
    Full VxSim
    TORNADO BSP DEVELOPER'S KIT


    Runtime Components:
    VxWorks embedded RTOS
    TrueFFS flash file system
    VxFusion
    VxVMI
    VxMP


    So, how far does Linux have to come to match these tools?
    • I beleive TORNADO is just a GUI built on top of GDB, so much of the Wind River toolchain is no better than it's Open Source foundation. The real value that Wind River is adding here is in BSP support for specific processors -- meaning their should be a real market out there for consultants capable of porting Embedded Linux to customer specified hardware.
    • So, how far does Linux have to come to match these tools?

      Considering that they are thinking about moving to an Eclipse/CDT-based IDE [eclipse.org], hopefully Linux won't really have to do much of anything.

      Eclipse and CDT already run on Java, atop GDB. It's just up to WRS to port whatever OS-aware bits they want to the new Eclipse/CDT architecture, and to make sure that there is a working GDB that can target their hardware.

      I am willing to bet that this new Linux strategy is most of the reason they've been toyin
      • Wind is doing more than thinking about Eclipse. One of their three major announcements [windriver.com] today was for a new Eclipse-based IDE, named WindPower IDE 2. And it supports both Linux and VxWorks, so you're right. VxWorks 6.0 (with process-level memory protection, among other things) was also announced [windriver.com].

      • Re:What does that mean to VxWorks? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Ok, pay attention! Now you have WindRiver, which is the largest "proprietary" RTOS (and yes, RTOS) vendor going with Eclipse. MontaVista, the #1 Embedded Linux house also uses Eclipse. So does Timesys, probably the #2 Embedded Linux house. And QNX, another RTOS vendor was a founding member of Eclpise and also uses then environment. Anyone see a trend here???? This could put other tool vendors really out to pasture really quick with this kind of backing for Eclipse. And now that Eclipse has "cut loose
    • So, how far does Linux have to come to match these tools?

      Linux is just a kernel. The question should be "How many tools must an embedded linux vendor ship to match the standard vxworks package?". From the point of view of Wind River, this probably means porting a lot of what they already have. Not a bad strategy, really, given that the toolchain is often the deciding factor in the choice of OS.

    • Re:What does that mean to VxWorks? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's exactly why I don't use linux. Because until Open source movement gets something as widely used as the GCC compiler, it's just not worth my time to mess around with that stuff.
    • A quick look would suggest the major missing component would be Windview. This has proved pretty essential to us and it would br interesting if there was a linux equivalent.

      The BSP developers kit allows you to get started pretty quick on development but is not essential.

      The rest could and can be replaced with open source components. The only question is whether linux can match your task performance requirements

  • Bah. Windriver is the SCO of the embedded world. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23, 2004 @06:52PM (#8367970)
    While it's great that Windriver is finally starting to throw in the towel on proprietary Embedded OS's, these guys have made enough bad moves in the embedded space to leave a sour impression in the minds of a lot of people.

    They've got lots of crappy, overpriced proprietary software, and to boot they've tried stealing as much from Open Source software as they could get away with. I look forward to seeing them actually contribute something to the community, but I'm not holding my breath. I suspect they'll be like many of the other big names in the embedded space, who are mostly trying to tie people into their own platforms. I am pleased that I can finally tell the snooty VxWorks developers whom I've argued with over the years "I told you so", though. :)

    • And heaven help you if you were foolish enough to base a product on VxWorks AE - they're short-lived product which tried to kludge virtual memory via regions. I imagine most were smart enough to avoid AE (why use a work-around when QNX, Linux, etc, provide the real thing), thus WRS has EOLed it. Presumably VxWorks 6.0 is moving to a real process model; but shouldn't it have been obvious from day 1 that this was the way to go?

    • Re:Bah. Windriver is the SCO of the embedded world (Score:5, Informative)

      by twiddlingbits ( 707452 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @08:48PM (#8369167)
      What makes you thing WRS is throwing in the towel on the proprietary nature of VxWorks? They could take some things out of Linux that might help performance or increase capability in some areas of VxWorks. I don't think they want to use the Linux kernal as a whole. Maybe they want to see if the can have TWO OSes to sell or maybe a hybrid. I don't suspect you'll see things coming out to the Open Source from WRS whatever they do with Linux, they are quite proprietary with their software. I once tried to get source for vxWorks (customer wanted it) many years ago. I recall the asking price was 50K plus run-time fees.

      If you are a solid embedded engineer who REALLY knows how things work and not just a code slinger you can make vxWorks do some very nice things for you. But you have to be careful or you kill the OS and have to start over. The BSPs are very configurable if you know how the processor actually WORKS. Using VxWorks is not a job for the average programmer, you don't just hack it out and expect it to work. I have taken almost all of the classes they offer (not in the last 5 yrs thought) and found them to be well taught and service we had at a major defense company was excelllent. I could call up the local tech guy and get good answers. Of course YMMV on tech support as we are talking people here. I don't recall seeing Linux with drivers for VME bus and MIL-STD-1553 as VxWorks has. But maybe if Linux hits the embedded market someone will do that. I've not heard of anyone with a sour impression of VxWorks. Plus they HAVE managed to stay in business, if they were as bad as you imply I think as small as the market for embedded OSes is over the last 15yrs (it's getting bigger now) they would have gone under.

      As for Tornado and the Debugger, I've seen much better IDEs. The tools were often much buggier than the BSPs and the OS. Unless they have improved since the last time I used them I think they were more in the way than helpful.WRS is pretty much the leader in embedded general purpose OSes. There are others that are better for specific purposes.

      Oh, and this stuff about vendors tieing you to a platform..ever seen Windows run on anything but a X86 Architecture? If it works for Redmond you can bet everyone is going to try to emulate it in their market. Software vendors are a Monkey See Monkey do bunch with Microsoft as the head monkey.

      Back to lurk mode...
      • If you are a solid embedded engineer who REALLY knows how things work and not just a code slinger you can make vxWorks do some very nice things for you.

        Same is true for the Linux world. The same statement, exactly, can be made for Open Source development.
        • I dont doubt it! I see so much crappy code written the last 5-7 yrs its disgusting. MS really set the standard low. Those of us who had to write software where someone's LIFE depended on it being RIGHT and the actions happening ON TIME not when ever the OS decides it like vxWorks. If you can make Linux become hard realtime then go for it. I do know the UNIX kernel and it's not structured for hard real time but maybe Linux is different. I wouldn't mind seeing an Open Source RTOS. There is no monopoly on idea
      • Pretty much agree. The thing that would stop us moving to linux is the VME support and propietry drivers like redundant ethernet driver/. I am sure it could be done but would take time and effort with no certain reward.

        The tool we would miss most is wind view. Its nice to setup a system running and then see what all the tasks had been doing while you are away

        • The thing that would stop us moving to linux is the VME support and propietry drivers like redundant ethernet driver/. I am sure it could be done but would take time and effort with no certain reward.

          There is this VME driver: vmelinux [vmelinux.org]
          And blatently plugging my own :-)
          VMIC Linux BSP [vmic.com] Although we ship the VMEbus driver as part of a board support package for our single board computers, the VMEbus driver is a seperate module. It should work on any Tundra Universe II based VME board and is distributed for

    • Where do you get off saying they "stole" Open Source software? Do you seriously think that they are violating the GPL? Or are you just pissed that they are making money off of the GNU compiler and development tools? A lot of companies are, and are doing it legally. You must be with SCO.

  • Wind River = Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 23, 2004 @07:08PM (#8368104)
    Well my experience with Wind River was when they bought pSOS, they quickly terminated them as they were their biggest RTOS competitor at the time.

    People say that Microsoft are anti competitive well Wind River certainly know how to destroy the competition.....don't be fooled by this Linux purchase Red Hat Embedded Linux will be disolved into VxWorks.

    Wind River RTOS licenses cost the earth and their technical support isn't that great.

  • Suspicious... (Score:3, Funny)

    by fltsimbuff ( 606866 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @07:18PM (#8368203) Homepage
    Anyone else wonder if this might have something to do with the problems with the Spirit rover that just happened to be running a VxWare OS?

    Maybe the next rover will be running Red Hat Embedded Linux...

    Maybe they should make a multi-booting rover. Win2k, a few flavors of Linux, and *BSD. They could boot into Windows to play solitaire on the rover during slow research days. The next rover should also have a nice speaker system on it, and should be able to stream MP3's from NASA to play... To keep the Aliens away from it like in Mars Attacks!... Would hate for it to get stolen and turned into a Little martion child's RC car like Solourner...

  • Verbing weirds language (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Simon Garlick ( 104721 ) on Monday February 23, 2004 @08:09PM (#8368758)
    "Partners"?
  • NASA, which used VxWorks for the current mars rovers Operating system, is investigating the use of linux for the new 2009 rover. I wonder these two things are linnked.
  • Given WIND's track record, does this mean that they are now going to attempt to ditch Linux? :)

    Seriously, though, the only strategy WIND has ever had has been to sell heinously overpriced VxWorks products. If they are touting Linux right now, it's only because they expect to be able to convert some portion of that Linux interest into sales of expensive proprietary software and tools.

    The article asked what gain WIND could hope to see out of this move. To me, WIND's gain is obvious -- I'm not certain what

  • Yuck (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The large company I work for recently dumped VxWorks for Linux. WR support wasn't just bad, it was positively sleazy. We begged them for help with a serious bug and they were completely unhelpful, dening any responsibility. When we finally were able to *prove* that the problem was theirs they admitted that it was a known problem!
  • I just don't understand how Linux became such a power in embedded development. Its license doesn't lend itself well to the embedded environment. From my experience in embedded development, there is very little that can be turned around and be of benefit to the community, but we have to very carefully work on our embedded Linux systems so as not to violate the GPL.

    My experience working on embedded systems based on BSD has been much better. And guess what got more code contributed back to it, BSD. With L
  • a brief history of the quest for the RTOS dominance: * Wind River incorprated 1981 and produces a set of libraries that will become vxWorks. initially vxworks runs on top of other kernels, such as pSOS and VRTX RTOS kernels. in order to run vxWorks effectively, you had to also buy pSOS or VRTX kernels. * 1989: vxWorks finally has its own kernel, called WIND. pSOS and VRTX kernels no longer supported by vxWorks. this creates some problems with existing users. * 1991: pSOS creator Al Chao sells

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