Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
theregister.com
Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
1–10 of 139 posts
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#2Another piece of software goes to rot under the Eclipse Foundation, woo
A foundation so bureaucratic that there is OSS that new people can't take over because it requires years of bureaucratic process.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#3Another piece of software goes to rot under the Eclipse Foundation, woo A foundation so bureaucratic that there is OSS that new people can't take over because it requires years of bureaucratic process.
According to the article the software is MIT licenced - one of the most permissive licences available. The Eclipse Foundation is an unusual choice, but amyone can use/modify or even fork this code if they want.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#4Another piece of software goes to rot under the Eclipse Foundation, woo A foundation so bureaucratic that there is OSS that new people can't take over because it requires years of bureaucratic process.
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Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#5This was "Azure RTOS", bought by Microsoft in haste after Amazon acquired FreeRTOS.
Bill Lamie left to start PX5 and work on a new lightweight embedded RTOS and took most of the talent with him. If Microsoft is doing this, they're pretty much walking away from their roadmap for Azure RTOS and IoT nodes along those lines.
I call it a win, ThreadX had a lot more ecosystem behind it than FreeRTOS ever did. And it does run on things other than Raspberry Pis. Renesas used to give it away for free if you bought their SoCs.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#6Another piece of software goes to rot under the Eclipse Foundation, woo A foundation so bureaucratic that there is OSS that new people can't take over because it requires years of bureaucratic process.
So what's your alternative? Leave it rot in a filing cupboard somewhere?
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#7> At this point, only the current version is on GitHub, and we don't see any trace of a VideoCore version.
:(
(This is the RPi boot blob)
> Now, there is at least some hope that the Raspberry Pi Foundation might be able to get permission to release the source code for its version.
Indeed that would be something!
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#8The safety certifications are particularly interesting. It's a lot of work to develop "safe software" - that is software that is developed according to a safety standard and certified to a "safety integrity level". Having an RTOS which is both open source and safety certified is pretty great.
They say they want to maintain the certifications - that will be tricky unless there's some investment coming from somewhere. It's a lot of fairly bureaucratic work to understand the safety standards, put the right development processes in place and maintain those as your software changes. It's not nearly as simple as just writing code and running it. It's definitely not the kind of software development someone would do as a hobby. I hope Microsoft are going to fund some of that development effort.
Interestingly although FreeRTOS isn't safety certified, SAFERTOS (https://www.highintegritysystems.com/safertos/) is - which is a commercial implementation with the same APIs.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#9> At this point, only the current version is on GitHub, and we don't see any trace of a VideoCore version. :( (This is the RPi boot blob) > Now, there is at least some hope that the Raspberry Pi Foundation might be able to get permission to release the source code for its version. Indeed that would be something!
I understand the notion here that opening up ThreadX will start to allow visibility into VideoCore, since ThreadX runs the thing. But an RTOS/scheduler is only a miniscule part of a GPU and since Broadcom never opens up anything, I believe it's a false hope.
Opening up any GPU code, from any maker, invites patent lawsuits from competitors. And then the injunctions start flying.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#10It's a fine RTOS, at least it was when I was working on Deskjet firmware. At the time the open source OSes and especially the tooling really wasn't up to the task. Things really have changed though, now there are alternatives.