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Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

theregister.com

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Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#21

Post by MegaDeKay »

joezydeco wrote: post #9
baq wrote: post #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!

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.

"Broadcom never opens up anything". True, but from a link in the related article from The Guardian [0]

> Broadcom when they developed the original Videocore firmware bought a licence for ThreadX from the writer. AIUI, a lifetime licence, it never expires. No royalties or anything like that. Raspberry Pi have modified that firmware many many times over the last 10 years, but no royalties to pay. Many years later the writer of ThreadX sold the thing to Microsoft.

So sounds like the RPi folks have a free hand over this firmware and they might be able to open it now?

[0] https://forums.theregister.com/post/reply/4735439

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#22

Post by nine_k »

delfinom wrote: post #2

Another 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.

What's the point of "taking over" if you can fork?

How it something OSS if you cannot fork?

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#23

Post by sigzero »

joezydeco wrote: post #20
westurner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are there devs for the acquired platform now? The article says ThreadX used to be what Intel Management Engine ME ran on? How do I configure the ME / AMT VNC auth in there?

ThreadX has been around for 25 years. You licensed it and put it in your embedded system. It's in a lot of products.

> It's in a lot of products.

"currently running on over 12 billion devices around the world"

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#24

Post by westurner »

joezydeco wrote: post #20
westurner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are there devs for the acquired platform now? The article says ThreadX used to be what Intel Management Engine ME ran on? How do I configure the ME / AMT VNC auth in there?

ThreadX has been around for 25 years. You licensed it and put it in your embedded system. It's in a lot of products.

But how many people agreed to sign an NDA in order to cluster fuzz such a critical low-level firmware binary blob component?

Is this like another baseband processor?

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#25

Post by junon »

joezydeco wrote: post #5

This 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 r…

TIL Amazon acquired FreeRTOS.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#26

Post by hospitalJail »

zwieback wrote: post #10

It'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.

The progress the embedded world has made on FOSS has been incredible. I started in like 2016 or 2017(ignoring the ~8 years I played with Arduino).

At the end of the day, I end up often using microchip studio because that is my board and it just works nicely. However, I have tons of tiny personal projects I'll spin up with vscode and platformIO and knock stuff out. Heck, even when I was merely playing around with it, I was able to FOSS my way to building and sending everything with various software.

I cannot imagine embedded pre ardunio. You'd think it would have created a scarcity of workers.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#27

Post by krylon »

wiz21c wrote: post #19

Is it me or certification is a very powerful way to keep control on the open sourced code ? I mean it's open so you can modify it but as soon as you touch one line, you can't claim the certification anymore... Therefore only MSFT has the ability to change the code (because I suppose they don't have to re-do the whole certification); until another big player gets the certification. Right ?

My understanding is you need to re-certify in some form upon changing anything about the code. I'm not sure if it's the same process each time or if you can do some kind of incremental re-certification for minor updates.

Either way, Microsoft can afford to do that if they want to. But I would (naively) expect the rules to apply to anyone who wants to modify the code base, I don't think Microsoft has any privileged position when it comes to that.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#28

Post by sigzero »

delfinom wrote: post #2

Another 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.

It isn't going to rot. It's used in a phenomenal amount of devices. This is a good thing.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#29

Post by eschneider »

wiz21c wrote: post #19

Is it me or certification is a very powerful way to keep control on the open sourced code ? I mean it's open so you can modify it but as soon as you touch one line, you can't claim the certification anymore... Therefore only MSFT has the ability to change the code (because I suppose they don't have to re-do the whole certification); until another big player gets the certification. Right ?

Not really. It's pretty rare to use an RTOS without making _some_ modifications and it's intertwined with your application anyways. If you need certification, you're going to have to get it for the combined app/RTOS/RTOS-modifications anyways. And you're in better shape starting from a base that you know passes certification.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#30

Post by sigzero »

paddy_m wrote: post #16

It took a lot of reading of that blogpost before I realized that it was about an operating system. I seriously thought it was about some parallel threading standard. Especially for a broad announcement like that, they should give readers some more context.

What? It's in the first paragraph of the linked announcement. Unless you didn't know what RTOS was an acronym for but that is a simple google request.
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