> used in Raspberry Pis
Raspberry Pi is probably one of the less notable users.
Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
31–40 of 139 posts
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#32The 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.…
This is huge. Automakers won’t touch something unless it is iso 26262, and it commands a 10x premium. It is very hard to functional safety right, and this compliance is a key component in enabling tier 2 manufacturers.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
The development of ThreadX has nothing to do with all with RPi and VideoCore. It's a software component that was used to develop a larger architecture.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#34Is 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 ?
Yes! There are some industries that will not tolerate seat-of-the-pants development. Functional safety requirements make a nice tall fence to keep out risky developers. Which is why china automakers have no such regulations.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#35This 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…
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?
The IME ran on Minix.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
I believe it's wishful thinking. I wish all you RPi fans the best in your endeavor.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#37> used in Raspberry Pis Raspberry Pi is probably one of the less notable users.
But it makes RPi fans perk up their ears because it's part of the GPU blob that they still haven't been able to reverse-engineer.
This news about Azure RTOS has been posted to HN a few times over the last week or so, even once by me, but I didn't realize you had to put "Raspberry Pi" in the headline to get traction.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 w…
FWIW, the firmware is how they implement DRM for camera and codecs.
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#39It'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 cannot imagine embedded pre ardunio. You'd think it would have created a scarcity of workers.
That made it a useful market to be in (as a developer.) My first embedded task was on a PDP 11/23 sans OS (despite the fact that DEC had suitable RTOSs like RSX-11M)
Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX
#40Quote: " 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"
This is something that always irked me about RPi's. How the fuck, you, the hardware vendor, that's suppose to know the inner guts of your product, do not have full production for its software? That you need it to rely on undisclosed 3rd party blobs!! Yes, yes, I know about the politics and the business logic that led to this situation but that was at beginning, when money were need it. Nowadays they are in a good place in that regard, might wanna pivot so they fully control everything, but I guess once you go with a bad design, the complacent around that just grows.