It might have been nice of them to change the name slightly to avoid confusion with the originating FreeRTOS. https://www.freertos.org/
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Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
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Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#12Is this like the sample projects Microsoft makes available for interfacing a variety of development boards to their IoT hub [0] (a few of which use FreeRTOS), or is there something more to it? As usual the AWS docs are rich in inspiring buzz-words and very poor in explaining what the thing actually does. Not that Azure is better in that regard... [0] https://catalog.azureiotsuite.com/
In this case it seems Amazon outright acquired whoever was maintaining FreeRTOS and has made it available under an MIT license: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing-freertos-... So presumably they have bigger plans beyond examples.
Ok, now I get it.
The core of the announcement is that they're doing with FreeRTOS what Apple did with CUPS, basically (plus the MIT relicensing).
On the one hand, it feels like a power grab; on the other hand, one can only hope that it might bring some sorely needed standards of decency in the IoT world...
Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#13Is this like the sample projects Microsoft makes available for interfacing a variety of development boards to their IoT hub [0] (a few of which use FreeRTOS), or is there something more to it? As usual the AWS docs are rich in inspiring buzz-words and very poor in explaining what the thing actually does. Not that Azure is better in that regard... [0] https://catalog.azureiotsuite.com/
In this case it seems Amazon outright acquired whoever was maintaining FreeRTOS and has made it available under an MIT license: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing-freertos-... So presumably they have bigger plans beyond examples.
I'm a bit confused. I guessed he was selling it with Wittenstein given (a) they have commercial licenses for the same source and (b) one of their docs said he helped set up the High Integrity Division of Wittenstein. That link makes me wonder what impact they had at all on FreeRTOS.
https://www.highintegritysystems.com/openrtos/
Note that I don't follow FreeRTOS's closely. I just discovered it searching for RTOS's with Wittenstein looking at who was doing safety-certified RTOS's. At least back then, it was neat to think someone's RTOS project was getting adoption in the commercial sector with some money going back to them. Now I wonder...
Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems it is exactly freeRTOS, but with some additional drivers and libs so not changing the name seems to be a good decision I think. I am wondering however if by using this os, the dev is obliged to use aws services. Isn't this more of a limitation than a benefit?
That's a fair question. There definitely are people not wanting the additional stuff from Amazon.
For example, probably most people using FreeRTOS thus far were using it for ordinary MCU stuff like listening for button presses and blinking LEDs without even involving a wifi transceiver at any point.
Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case it seems Amazon outright acquired whoever was maintaining FreeRTOS and has made it available under an MIT license: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing-freertos-... So presumably they have bigger plans beyond examples.
I'm a bit confused. I guessed he was selling it with Wittenstein given (a) they have commercial licenses for the same source and (b) one of their docs said he helped set up the High Integrity Division of Wittenstein. That link makes me wonder what impact they had at all on FreeRTOS. https://www.highintegritysystems.com/openrtos/ Note that I don't follow FreeRTOS's closely. I just discovered it searching for RTOS's wi…
This certainly seems to make OPENRTOS^R redundant
The additional value offered by OPENRTOS is as a ‘commercial and legal wrapper’ for FreeRTOS users.Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#16The most useful aspect of this, from my perspective: they've finally abolished the non-FOSS license of the old FreeRTOS, and released it under an actually Open Source license, namely MIT. That's one less headache to deal with.
It's a nice present from Amazon. They should keep doing this, I'd like a MIT licensed QNX next please. God knows they have the money.
Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#17The most useful aspect of this, from my perspective: they've finally abolished the non-FOSS license of the old FreeRTOS, and released it under an actually Open Source license, namely MIT. That's one less headache to deal with.
It's a nice present from Amazon. They should keep doing this, I'd like a MIT licensed QNX next please. God knows they have the money.
GPL would be fine too; I'd just like something that actually qualifies as FOSS, rather than something proprietary.
Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#18It might have been nice of them to change the name slightly to avoid confusion with the originating FreeRTOS. https://www.freertos.org/
It seems it is exactly freeRTOS, but with some additional drivers and libs so not changing the name seems to be a good decision I think. I am wondering however if by using this os, the dev is obliged to use aws services. Isn't this more of a limitation than a benefit?
According to [1] "FreeRTOS remains open source, with no commitments. [...] FreeRTOS users are not required to be AWS customers in any way."
Most likely Amazon's motivation is that they can make sure FreeRTOS makes using Amazon's services very easy; there are some IoT offerings that can't connect to Amazon's services, (or at least can't connect easily) [2]
By making sure FreeRTOS can easily pull in the right libraries, they can make it easier for people to connect devices to AWS without compromising on secure encryption.
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing-freertos-... [2] Last time I checked, Amazons MQTT service required TLS1.2 and an esp8266 only supported TLS1.1
Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#19It might have been nice of them to change the name slightly to avoid confusion with the originating FreeRTOS. https://www.freertos.org/
It seems it is exactly freeRTOS, but with some additional drivers and libs so not changing the name seems to be a good decision I think. I am wondering however if by using this os, the dev is obliged to use aws services. Isn't this more of a limitation than a benefit?
i would assume it’s like amazon linux; rhel with extras to make amazonization easy... but freertos rather than rhel
Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers
#20Is this like the sample projects Microsoft makes available for interfacing a variety of development boards to their IoT hub [0] (a few of which use FreeRTOS), or is there something more to it? As usual the AWS docs are rich in inspiring buzz-words and very poor in explaining what the thing actually does. Not that Azure is better in that regard... [0] https://catalog.azureiotsuite.com/
In this case it seems Amazon outright acquired whoever was maintaining FreeRTOS and has made it available under an MIT license: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/announcing-freertos-... So presumably they have bigger plans beyond examples.
Richard Barry, founder of FreeRTOS, has joined AWS as a principal engineer, and will continue to support Amazon FreeRTOS. WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS) will continue to support and develop OPENRTOS and SAFERTOS, commercial implementations of FreeRTOS for projects that require certification or support.
Richard released FreeRTOS in 2003, and had been working on FreeRTOS in partnership with WHIS since 2006, when they started to provide commercial support for it.