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ISI, Mitsubishi to Develop New Operating System 67

Posted by Roblimo from the anything's-better-than-wince dept.
Richard Finney writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Integrated Systems Inc. and Mitsubishi are teaming to create a new operating system in a Yahoo! News story here. The OS will be for new, portable gadgets that will feature high-speed Internet access."
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ISI, Mitsubishi to Develop New Operating System More

ISI, Mitsubishi to Develop New Operating System

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  • I'm giving my grandmother a Linux system. I think of it as similar to setting up a kiosk somewhere. All she has to do is turn it on, logon, find her games and a word processor and maybe e-mail, and shut it down correctly.

    Choice is good, though... how many good RTOSs are out there that run killer apps like a word processor?

    --
    QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.21!
  • Bad moderation here - the parent post isn't really offtopic. This RTOS is being marketed for "portable gadgets with high-speed internet access".

    When you consider that the new PCS wireless phones in the U.S. top out at 14.4Kbit/s, and that the digital phones in use in the rest of the world are at the same speed, the question has it's merits.

    What good is handheld if you have to plug it into a wall to get high-speed access? To me, not very good at all.

    The thing is, there are a whole bunch of new standards out there for other ways of connecting handhelds to networks at high speeds.

    There's a standard called "Bluetooth" that uses cheap low-power radio transceivers much smaller than cell phones to connect devices to > 1Mbit/s local networks. At that point, you're only one router away from the internet.

    The 3rd generation cellular standards are defining data rates over 100Kbit/s as well for use by normal users. The telcos all see this as a great way of getting people to keep the wireless networks at capacity (i.e., making them money).

    The moral of the story is: Internet connected handhelds are coming, and they even be useful. It's just going to take a few years as all of the infrastructure comes together.



  • I'd like to add to your rant. I've been doing embedded development for 4 years now. The first two were in a Solaris and HP/UX cross-development environment, using commercial tools (logic analyzers, emulators, debuggers) that were very UNIX-centric. The last two have been spent using Windows-based debuggers, apparently because the market demands this. I've seen new test equipment (namely, a Tektronix logic analyzer than runs Win95 with 16MB of RAM). Can you imagine dropping tens of thousands of dollars for a high-speed instrument that's going to crash twice a day? The windows debugger crashes left and right.

    What B.S.! If our revision control and compiler tools weren't on solaris, and if our host environment weren't POSIX-based, I'd go nuts! The tools vendors out there seem to have got half of the problem solved - Solaris and HP/UX hardware have traditionally been too expensive. I like tools that run on PCs. I just wish that the PCs were running Linux! It's not that I have anything against m$ft (right), it's just that I want the tools to work without crashing!

    Luckily, Sun seems to be responding with hardware that's nearly as cheap as PC hardware. If the vendors don't stop supporting Solaris, there might be hope for sane development envrionments!

    Still, I'd love to see more Linux support out there in the embedded cross-development world.
  • I don't disagree with you, just pointing out the GPL is not perfect for everyone (i use *bsd a lot)
  • Here goes.

    There have been a lot of comments slating this new OS, mostly along the lines of 'Linux Rules'. While I run Linux on my PC, I'd never run it on a PDA.

    Firstly, I don't need a multiuser operating system for my PDA. Why waste precious space with useless code? The same goes for other great Linux features.

    Secondly, James Gosling wrote Java for Cosumer Electronics (CEs). Sun was looking for a new direction. So they got a bunch of people together and decide to make a new operating system for CEs. Gosling then invented Oak. Sun decided that Oak made an awesome programming language, so they renamed it Java and the rest is history. (Ok, so I simplified a little). Some of the old CE vision for Oak still shows in Java, making it idea for this kind of programming.

    Thirdly, if you have a processor which runs ByteCode (i.e. runs compiled Java natively) you can write an GUI plus OS which takes up less than 1mb. Sun did this a few years back, I think. I know there are some pretty small Linux installs but I don't know of any that small.

    Caio.
    Simon.
    [Web page currently down due to selling of server]
  • If the GPL chokes them, they can go with one of the BSD's.

    Without knowing more, the initial reaction of any genineer should be that writing an operating system from scratch for the sake of supporting internet access devices is a ridiculous undertaking.

    The internet access device is an application. You rarely need to write an OS to develop a new application!

    Developing just the TCP/IP networking component of an OS is a major undertaking; one just has to look at the years of tweaking to cover up exploits in just about every implementation. Presumably, these guys are smart enough to at least use some off-the-shelf TCP/IP. (But then are they really developing the OS from scratch? Not wholly).
  • The company ISI is described in the article as being a leading maker of operating systems for microcontrollers. It's laughable to see some company described as making operating systems as though they were lightbulbs or potato chips!

    Mor like, they probably have some common code base that they just tweak a little as needed. It's clearly unlikely that these guys start a whole new operating system project for each customer.

    This is probably just a case of ignorant journalism more than anything. Journalists, in the area of technology like in any other area, thrive on sensationalism; blowing things out of proportion.
  • Nope, it's a quote.
  • > If I am wrong why did these corporate giants hired that company for the software?

    Because ISI are one of the leaders in the embedded space, and have proven experience in providing hard-realtime operating systems.

    It's as simple as that.

  • also think ISI has an OS called Chorus, which is designed to run on parallel processors.


    Do you mean ChorusOS? Sun owns it and is developing it these days.

  • Question: Why do you use linux?

    Because it is stable and powerful and useful. If something better comes along that has all these things, but more so than linux/*BSD will you switch? I sure as hell will.

    Perhaps one of these ventures will result in an even more stable beast than linux. I truly hope it resembles unix so all this "learning linux" won't go to waste, but it was gun in any case.

    I'm pushing for GNU HURD myself... maybe someday it will be a reality.

  • Firstly, I don't need a multiuser operating system for my PDA. Why waste precious space with useless code? The same goes for other great Linux
    features.

    Most people don't. Linux for the PalmPilot/etc, isn't to *run* Linux on it. It is to show that Linux *can* be ported to nearly any device w/o extreme amounts of trouble. It is just to do it, not to actually use it for something useful.

    As far as having another OS for PDA's... I really don't see the need. PalmOS runs REALLY well, really FAST, and does EVERYTHING everyone wants it to do.

    I really don't understand the point of having "high-speed Internet Access" on a PDA. I have a desktop, I have a laptop, I goto a college, I can check my email from anywhere. Unless they are going to get it to hook up to the wireless microwave T1's in Phoenix, I don't see the point...
  • > There really isn't much excuse even when Linux is open sourced.

    Of course there is an perfectly valid reason not to use Linux. The GPL. A lot of companies *choke* on this.
  • I think not, at least not for me. Linux has too many features best used on much larger computers, trimming it down to a bare minimum to run on a PDA is a waste of time. Linux is a great operating systems, but it's not really one that should be ported everywhere (although I'm sure it could). I'd much rather use an all Java OS on my palmtop. Why you ask? Well with Java the UI and such are built into the program which is inherently small, not to mention Java was originally Oak Sun which was meant to run on handhelds in the first place which has already probably been pointed out. Another reason to have a Java based palmtop is compatibility and portability. If I have a Palmtop with a wireless network connection, my storage needs can easily be done remotely. If everyone in the office has a Palmtop who's applications are stored on the company intranet, they don't need hundreds of dollars worth of Compact Flash cards to store everything. When they're away from the office they can download the same applications which can be stored locally if they are going to be running disconnected. Java is also nice for not entirely well paid in-company developers who need to write a new app just for use inside the company. Instead of writing a dozen different ports of it, they write a Java version which runs on both the desktops but also on the Palmtops. Write once run anywhere is the most useful aspect of Java in my opinion.
  • Oh, I do this often, I just didn't swear this time :)
  • I'm amazed that prior posters haven't mentioned eCos ( http://www.cygnus.com/ecos/ ) as an alternative to this. To quote their page:

    Cygnus developed eCos to provide an open, standard infrastructure for embedded developers worldwide. eCos provides a common run-time software environment that can be configured from source code to meet most application-specific requirements. eCos is available as an open source product.

    Cygnus delivers eCos from sourceware.cygnus.com as an open source release. Cygnus also delivers eCos as a commercial product backed by Cygnus developer support.

    p.s. Just to make it clear, I have no affiliation with Cygnus.

  • What source code was that comment in?
  • It's good to have choice when choice is the only freedom you have in this society...
  • Er...there currently isn't a usable Linux kernel for any device that runs WinCE. This being the case, I don't really think you can say Linux is providing WinCE with competition. I wish it were, though...WinCE is a real piece of crap when it comes to small devices. We need more people working on the LinuxCE [linuxce.org] effort!
  • It's a bit more heavy weight that eCos but much much less than Linux. Unlike eCos it also comes with a TCP/IP stack and soon will have a lightwieght, realtime filesystem thus making it very suitable for embedded internet devices.

    RTEMS has already been used in set top boxes and at least one prototype internet access "appliance".

    Of course RTEMS is Open Source software with GPL+simple exception licence and is heavily oriented towards the GNU tools(but does not exclusivly require them like eCos).

    Unlike the previous poster I am biased.. I'm helping to write RTEMS ;)
  • pSOS is still popular in embedded applications
    like TV settop boxes, industrial control systems,
    and other applications where the OS doesn't
    have much visibility. I worked on a few projects
    in recent years that used pSOS. Good for "hard"
    real-time apps, and easy to strip down to a
    small size. Linux developers might not like it
    because the startup costs are rather high,
    and it is not "open-source". Driver sources
    come with a license purchase, but you cannot
    redistribute them, and the kernel is a blackbox
    of machine code that you probably can't reverse
    engineer legally.
  • ISI is the vendor we purchase our development system from, for use in a real-time audio processing system. The OS is pSOS, and bundled with compilers, tools for emulators, and performance processing tools. While speaking with other departments who use the development system for larger efforts, it was pretty clear to me that the tools and add-on developments (particularly profiling and code navigation tools) were feature rich and EXTREMELY bug-ridden, to the point were there is almost no useability. Feature-creep and glossy handout material.

    pSOS seems a fairly capable OS, but we have hardly put it through its paces. I hope that if ISI is indeed attempting to come out with another embedded OS (and they have purchased the company that developed pSOS), that it will be that end of the company doing the development, not the hacks that are cranking out those sad tools.

    ISI (IMHO) is basically a system integration vendor trying to move on to development, and doing it with a marketing-driven twist, instead of actually shipping code that works (shades of Micros~1?). I don't expect much to come of this, if they can't produce tools that work, they won't compete in a field that appears to be saturating.

    Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, I've spent quite a few hours being jerked around by an ISI salesman trying to sell me tools I don't need that apparently don't work.
  • Your situation is something I have heard many times in the last couple of years..

    Please have a look at the Open Source RTOSs and tools that are available:

    - RTEMS(http://www.oarcorp.com) (my personal favourite)
    - eCos(http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ecos/)
    - My Right Boot(http://www.moretonbay.com/coldfire/boot.html) an excellent modular but lightweight bootloader

    There are a lot of people who are using these OSes and the GNU tools they predominantly(but not exclusivly) use. Getting *professional* support without NDAs or any other nonsense is easy too...

    I don't have a lot of experience of eCos but the RTEMS and GNU developers I've worked with are largely professionals who want to work *together* to provide a rock solid, transparent platform for their application. This leaves more time to actually produce the application rather than debug the damn toolset....!!!!
  • If you look back at the last ten years, there has been the anomaly of there being only a small amount of real progress in the development of operating systems.

    Twenty years ago, there were a goodly number of derivatives of Multics as well as attempts at "truly new" stuff like Hydra on their way.

    In the '90s, the only alternatives anyone has had any "faith" in have been Windows NT, and, in the last year, Linux. I would contend that this has been the result of

    • A concerted attempt by MSFT to buy out the OS research groups,
    • The failure of IBM's "WorkPlace OS" project, which is related insofar as it was based on Mach, and MSFT offered Rashid, the Mach architect, "too much to pass up," and
    • Related to both of the above, a conscious attempt by MSFT to convince the marketplace that the future would involve "Windows Everywhere."
    • Add in the factor that there used to be sizable projects that combined academic, government, and corporate funds to produce public goods, as resulted in such things as X, BSD 386, CMU Lisp, and Andrew, that don't seem to be continuing to be sponsored
    And you get the situation where it looked like the world might conceivably be "Windows Anywhere."

    The way we get improvements, in the long run, is by trying a diverse set of different things. Linux is not appropriate everywhere, and we may find, out of some alternative OS research, the successor that will be so much better that it can ultimately replace Linux for "general purpose" applications.

    Furthermore, there are more kinds of applications out there than merely those for which the "big server" that Linux is ideal for.

    • For high security applications, the models provided by the UNIX security model are starting to show creakiness.

      Experimentation with capability-based systems is needed to figure out how to build more secure systems.

    • For very small embedded systems, Linux is simply too big.

      Cygnus' ECOS has a kernel that can be configured as small as a couple of kilobytes.

      It may be amazing enough that you can boot Linux on a PalmPilot; that doesn't mean that it is actually useful to do so.

      If I wanted to build something to fit in 2MB of RAM and some smaller amount of ROM, I'd not pick Linux.

    The world will be served by allowing Linux to be replaced by a set of OSes that are better, once such systems can mature into usefulness.

    Remember also that Linux may be legitimately regarded as being merely a kernel.

  • Why can't they just spend the money on improving linux? Haven't they heard of Linux?

    Linux is wholly unsuitable for use as an embedded operating system. It it far too large, for starters, and doesn't have any real-time scheduling or runtime features. It doesn't really compare to, say, QNX for real time, deteministic scheduling, memory allocation, and I/O.

    You can fit a preemptively multi tasking OS with a windowing system, web server and browser on a single floppy disk with QNX. You can fit a fully functioning router onto a single floppy disk with picoBSD.

  • Hear hear. What a lot of /.'ers seem to forget is that while Win3.x/95/98 may be buggy as all Hell, it's nothing like a hacker's dream OS, and no-one is particularly fond of the company that brought it to us, as far as the average Joe is concerned, it's relatively easy to use for all that. Same goes for MacOS. You may not like it, but it's a damn sight friendlier to use.

    _When_ one of the Linux distros has reached the point of being able to install from CD with a nice gooey (sic) interface that sets everything up for you without asking you a million questions about what packages you want installed, when installing new software/drivers is as easy as sticking a CD in the machine, when we start seeing full (as opposed to adequate) hardware support (Rage 128 anyone?), _then_ we might have an alternative for the less computer-literate. Linux/GNU/XFree86/... (and *BSD et al) have got a long way to go yet if they are seriously to challenge the Microsofts and Apples of the desktop OS world.

    This is not to slam Linux. It's a good effort, but it still hasn't escaped the hacker niche, IMO.

    --
    This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along.

  • The AP news report cited claims that ISI and Mitsubishi "will develop a new operating system for hand-held computers". However, the press release [isi.com] from ISI [isi.com] claims that WebPDA is based on ISI's existing pSOS+ RTOS.

    A basic breakdown of what WebPDA actually is:

    • pSOS+ as the operating system
    • pJava from Sun as the JVM
    • Mitsubishi's VRPC hardware design
    • Espial's Java-based desktop and applications

    So, rather than a "new" OS, these companies have bundled together an existing RTOS, an existing JVM, an existing PDA hardware platform, and an existing Java framework, and made a big marketing announcement out of it. Big whoop. Every major RTOS vendor competing with ISI either already has a JVM on their platform or is working desperately to get one, and will have one Real Soon Now(tm).

    It is nice, though, to see the traditional RTOS vendors not quietly ceding the PDA space to the 800-pound gorilla of Microsoft [microsoft.com] and Windows CE [microsoft.com].

    Was Thomas Alva Edison the first 20th-century entrepreneur, a man who contributed greatly to the shape and form of modern society, and was therefore the spiritual godfather of Bill Gates? Or was he another 19th-century corporate baron, a public figure whose greatest talent was self-promotion, and was therefore the spiritual godfather of Bill Gates?
    -- Brian Santo, EE Times, 7/14/97

  • I don't know if I understand this comment. A lot of ASIC vendors put ROM and/or RAM on the ASIC along with the microcontroller. Unless you're talking about some of the interesting new "threaded processor architectures", people have been storing RTOS's in on-chip memory for a long time now.

    The real question is, why do you want the OS on the microcontroller itself? If it costs you more to make a big ASIC with embedded memory to get the job done than it does to make a small ASIC with external memory, your company will go with the cheap external memory. Otherwise, your company will go with the on-chip memory.

    However you choose, there's nothing magical about putting the RTOS on the chip. If you've enough RAM/ROM, it works, otherwise it doesn't.
  • Experimentation with capability-based systems is needed to figure out how to build more secure systems.

    Agreed, but much of this work has already been done. See the DG/UX B2 security option, for example. Other proprietary Unix vendors have done similar things (e.g. Trusted Solaris), but AFAIK none of them took it as far as DG. Interesting to note that DG/UX is one of the few innovative Unices out there. Although originally an SVR[34] licensee, later versions rewrote the kernel from scratch, in a similar manner to Linux, to support the additions they needed. Sadly, I think EMC's recent purchase of DG will result in the demise of DG/UX.

    I definitely agree that the world needs new OS designs. The more, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing promotes innovate as much as competition.

  • The thing is, sooner or later someone's going to figure how to cram enough MIPS and memory into your PDA to let it do more than it does today, and to do it well.

    I agree, "high-speed Internet Access" is pretty useless on today's PDA's, but sooner or later, you'll be wondering why anyone would ever want to carry around a brick of a laptop when a PDA does everything that it can do.

    That said, I definitely wouldn't buy a PDA for the purpose of internet access for a while. (Now, when the 3rd generation cellular systems with 155Mbit links begin shipping, I'll start thinking about it ;)
  • I obviously agree that:
    • Linux is not the solution to every computing problem
    • Research into new operating systems needs to continue, and perhaps be accelerated
    Looking at some of the comments from developers working on embedded systems, it sounds like we can, however, take one thing from the "Linux experience:" we perhaps don't need a whole lot of new proprietary operating systems, tiny or not.

    You even used the example of eCos, an open source RTOS for embedded systems.

    It's certainly an arguable point, as many, many people still support the proprietary software model. Even open source advocates support it for certain applications. But to suggest that open source is a model that should be followed, in the interest of consumer and developer alike, is at least a legitimate view, whether one agrees with it or not.

    BTW, I found your comments about the Workplace OS of great interest, as I had not heard about that particular event (Microsoft hiring away an important developer) before. Do you know where I can read more about that?

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • For one study on WorkPlace OS, see Workplace Microkernel and OS: A Case Study [ucr.edu].

    For where former Mach people are, see Former Mach Project Members. [cmu.edu]

    Microsoft themselves publicize Rashid's arrival [microsoft.com]

  • Somebody moderate this rant up! I've been working with pSOS, VxWorks, etc. for some years now, and I can agree with what you say wholeheartedly.

    One small item:

    But if my target is some weird iron featuring the latest funky embedded microprossesor from motorola, there is zero chance of linux being ported to my target by somebody else, least of all motorola themselves.

    This seems to be the whole point of MontaVista [mvista.com] -- they take that "weird iron" and get Linux running on it. So far, they seem to have only tackled Pentium CompactPCI systems, but I expect that given time and incentive ($$$) they will branch out. Certainly Force [forcecomputers.com] isn't an Intel-only shop.

    And if Mot were smart, they'd help push Linux onto their funky embedded chips, especially the 68360 and the PowerPC 860 series. But I've never been able to figure out Mot's OS "strategy" ... they seem to just want to make cool hardware and not to have to worry about what's running on top of it.

  • Thank you for providing the links. I've only been able to scan through quickly, but there appears to be a great deal of excellent information, particularly at the first link. I'd suggest others take a look.

    Linus' views on microkernels are, of course, well known. I think he's right, to a point, and in the context of where computing is today. Projects like the Workplace OS, ambitious as they were, I think reflected the hopes of many of where the microkernel could take us (I certainly was all caught up in the hype for the project at the time). Perhaps they still will. I can only dream.

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • We want linux.


    -------------------------------------------

  • ISI and Previous Operating Systems (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I *think* ISI bought Software Components Group,
    who wrote the pSOS real time kernel. pSOS was
    pretty good, I thought. We used it to build
    some control systems and communications boxes.

    I also think ISI has an OS called Chorus, which
    is designed to run on parallel processors.

    So they probably can write an OS. The apps, well
    that's another story.

    -- cary
  • It's good that WinCE will have some competition... but wait, it does: Linux.
    --------
    "I already have all the latest software."
  • "Operating System" means the kernel and support programs. It doesn't have to have Microsoft-style "Integration" in order to be part of the OS.

    Also, integration is not necessarily that bad. Look at the Amiga, or KDE. Microsoft simply doesn't know how to implement it.
    --------
    "I already have all the latest software."
  • Is this really necessary? There are already a bunch of os's out there. I'm not sure the industry can really support many os's, even if they fill a specialized niche. Look at how many good os's have died, OS/2 for example. There really isn't much excuse even when Linux is open sourced.

    -- Moondog
  • why are you complaining about windows CE (yes, it's bad) because this article is about developing a NEW OS? Oh well, I guess I'm just missing the point.... sorry.
  • I know from inside sources who I used to work with that Intel will be producing some sort of small gadget related to the palm but including cellphone/tV? that runs on a modified Linux Kernel.

    Digital Theatre News [dtheatre.com]
    -------------------------------------------
  • Real-time OSs should be integrated on-chip in microcontrollers so that the cost goes down to rock bottom and so that the integration with on-chip hardware is very tight. A new, extensible microcontroller OS would be welcome if it achieved this, but otherwise it's "yet another OS".
  • I'n not sure this is a good idea...
  • i am going to make this little box. it will improve most of what you do. it will give you high speed access to the internet... blah blah blah


    it cant get much worse than that.
  • I know linux can be forced to run on some palmtop devices, but are there any distro's geared towards a palm PC's hardware? That would probably KILL winCE because from my experience, most palm PC users are geeks and most geeks prefer linux... Hell, imagine how cool it would be to run X on a palm pilot. And imagine the performance and usability boost. You could use your handheld devices to do anything then. Not to mention it's cheaper cuz its free...

    ---------------------------
    "I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
  • I tumbled upon it in a C source I'm currently maintaining. It's closed project.


    It gave we a good chuckle in a middle of sorting out some pretty hairy code. The original author was quite frustrated with the VMS file handling.

  • Let's see, we have:

    Palm OS from 3COm.
    EPOC from Psion
    QNX from ONX (think of Amiga and Proton UI)
    OpenDos from Caldera Thin Clients a.k.a Lineo
    Embedix, and embedded Linux from Lineo
    TRON, a series of embedded OS' from Japan

    And that doesn't include Windows CE from Microsoft, and I'm sure I've not even scratched the surface. This sounds like another closed Japanese "innovation".


  • More links (Score:3)

    by grungeKid ( 4260 ) on Monday September 06, 1999 @08:19AM (#1700220) Homepage
    ISI Releases Net Device Reference Design [allnetdevices.com]
    Trio seeks to jump-start Java-based PDAs [zdnet.com]

    It looks like a cool system... and before you moan about it being java based and therefore intrinsically slow, remember that java was originally based for appliances like settop boxes and handhelds. They're partnering with Espial for java class libraries, and Espial has done some great java libraries with a very small footprint. Will be interesting to see if it will be interoperable with the Palm + KJava
  • It is good to have choice. Wasn't that what Windows Refund Day was all about? Think about it, Linux (despite what you might think) is not perfect for everything. Nobody I know would give a Linux based system to their grandmother. I personally do not use Linux at all because it fills no need of mine that something else does not fill better. Cut them a break.
  • I agree whole heartedly with all your comments wrt PSOS. We've gone through the exact same headaches as you described. PSOS is a nice, solid, well engineered kernel. It is small, and much less complex (albeit less feature rich) than some of its competitors, like WindRiver's vxworks. What is BAD about it is their draconian license polic - per "instance" royalties, and a LARGE entry cost, not to mention the legally non-reverse-engineerable binary kernel itself. Interestingly enough, the compiler of choice for the i960 (our old platform) was Intel's ctools (their free hack of gcc). The rest of PSOS's targets all required payware (read: per seat, lmgrd-guarded licenses), as did their debugger.

    Also, the core was a complete black box (binary) with a whole TON of hooks into it so you could tweak it for your application.

    Tech support was a nightmare.. Getting even the most rudimentary technical information from them usually required 3 weeks and an NDA or two (like their task database structures in UN-documented .h files!)

    We have since decided to drop them for new projects and pretty much demand that vendors meet two requirements.

    1) no royalties
    2) ALL source code

    For those of you who doubt that the efforts of the FSF and those OpenSource wackos made any diferrence, you really have no clue.

    The state of embedded OS devel is a strange one. Most engineers that do this kind of design and coding are used to running their little debugger and compiler on their win95 machine. There is a growing segment of this market, however, that understands the big picture, and is willing to learn a bit about UNIX, mainly because of one thing: TCP/IP. This is remarkable, honest. No engineer in his right mind would be satisfied with what MS tells him networking is, givin the history of BSD sockets, and the fact that even the first winsock stack was not actually written by MS (seeing as they thought TCP/IP was a toy).

    Now that just about every embedded device can (and will eventually) be network aware, the feature space of these embedded OS's have much more in common with UNIX than they do their ROM-BIOS ancestors of lore. What does this mean? Now that most people's first UNIX experience is likely to involve Linux, they are also likely to be exposed to what OpenSource REALLY is - NOT corporations trying to get a free ride from random outside hobbiest/programmers, but a cooperative effort designed to reduce the amout of time duplicating somebody ELSE's efforts.

    How? By a)demanding source from the vendor (it may not be OSS, it may be subject to NDA, but that part is irrelevant so far) and b) actually cooperating with others doing similar work on similar platforms.

    Once the uninitiated engineer first discovers what its like to exchange source level bug fixes with other engineers, there is no going back, no matter how dense or MS centric they may be.

    One final comment. People on slashdot like to spout endlessly about "oo lets just put Linux on the toaster". They dont realize what it takes to get a totally foriegn, customised, embedded system running. You cant take ANYTHING for granted. You have no fixed memory map. You have no display, let alone debugged serial drivers. Your DRAM controller may be completely non functional. In this realm, products like PSOS and vxworks shine.

    Linux is PERFECT for embedded applications, but somebody has to do the booting. If the target is a brand new mboard from ASUS, with a known memory map, PCI controller, etc. AND there about 10,000 people all working at booting it and fixing bugs, great, linux is trivial.

    But if my target is some weird iron featuring the latest funky embedded microprossesor from motorola, there is zero chance of linux being ported to my target by somebody else, least of all motorola themselves. And the in-house R&D guys dont want to spend 4 months getting the OS booted, and then wondering how reliable the whole thing is in the end.

    IBM's release of the PowerPC reference design may change this, since it should be easily embeddable given the fact that both IBM and mot have some truly excellent embeeded PPC cpus coming out.

    BUT! I need the damn boot roms for the friggen evaluation boards, or its no sale, and I have to shell out the bucks to ISI or Windriver for their environment.
  • *shrug* JavaOS, Microware OS/9, RTLinux..millions of them. i wish these ppl would pour some cash into improving mklinux or rtlinux so we can use em in more embedded devices.
  • I flat out agree with the point on wasting space with useless code. I think most of the "Linux Rules" posts come from folks who don't really have a grip on the memory constraints of PDA. To be plainfully explicit, here's my take on it:

    The sum of the RAM and ROM that you need to run some of the tiny Linux projects I've heard about is on the order of 8-16MByte, with no applications to speak of. If a PDA vendor can cram everything he needs into half of that, including applications, and jack up his profit by $10 (a rabbit from my hat) on each of the million units he plans to sell...

    You get the idea.

    That said, I'm looking down the road a few years, when handhelds get beefier hardware because the 8MByte systems only cost $0.50 less than the 32MByte systems...

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