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Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

theregister.com

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Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#121

Post by pjmlp »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #111
pjmlp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it feels like getting rid of it. I never understood why they got it, when they already had Azure Sphere OS. At least they are open sourcing it, instead of leaving it in some digital vault.

> I never understood why they got it, when they already had Azure Sphere OS. Azure Sphere OS is based on Linux, thus needs much more powerful hardware than ThreadX.

It is deeply customised version of the Linux kernel for IoT, with specific Sphere OS APIs, hardly a random Linux distribution.

Having two OSes for the same space, even if ThreadX is less resource hungry makes marketing and developer support more complex.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#122

Post by aa-jv »

westurner wrote: post #118
uxp8u61q wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got that reversed. IME runs MINIX now, it used to run on ThreadX.

Linux (1991) started as a fork of MINIX (1987) by Tanenbaum. History of Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux MINIX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix Redox OS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redox_(operating_system) : > Redox is a Unix-like microkernel operating system written in the programming language Rust, which has a focus on safety, stability, and performance. [4][5][6] Redox aims to be secure…

Linux was NEVER a fork of MINIX. That is just false. Linus developed Linux in response to the experience he had with MINIX - but there is no MINIX code in Linux and never was.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#123

Post by aleph_minus_one »

aa-jv wrote: post #122
westurner wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux (1991) started as a fork of MINIX (1987) by Tanenbaum. History of Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux MINIX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix Redox OS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redox_(operating_system) : > Redox is a Unix-like microkernel operating system written in the programming language Rust, which has a focus on safety, stability, and performance. [4][5][6] Redox aims to be secure…

Linux was NEVER a fork of MINIX. That is just false. Linus developed Linux in response to the experience he had with MINIX - but there is no MINIX code in Linux and never was.

> Linus developed Linux in response to the experience he had with MINIX - but there is no MINIX code in Linux and never was.

For the last statement, Wikipedia disagrees:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Minix&oldid=11846...

"Eric Raymond claimed that Linus hasn't actually written Linux from scratch, but rather reused source code of MINIX itself to have working codebase. As the development progressed, MINIX code was gradually phased out completely."

quoting "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"

> https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Raymond_Eric_S_The_Cathedra...

for this statement. On p. 24 you can read:

"Linus Torvalds (http://www.tuxedo.org/˜esr/faqs/linus), for example, didn’t actually try to write Linux from scratch. Instead, he started by reusing code and ideas from Minix, a tiny Unix-like operating system for PC clones. Eventually all the Minix code went away or was completely rewritten—but while it was there, it provided scaffolding for the infant that would eventually become Linux."

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#124

Post by lproven »

westurner wrote: post #118
uxp8u61q wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got that reversed. IME runs MINIX now, it used to run on ThreadX.

Linux (1991) started as a fork of MINIX (1987) by Tanenbaum. History of Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux MINIX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix Redox OS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redox_(operating_system) : > Redox is a Unix-like microkernel operating system written in the programming language Rust, which has a focus on safety, stability, and performance. [4][5][6] Redox aims to be secure…

> Linux (1991) started as a fork of MINIX (1987) by Tanenbaum.

That is not true and never was.

It was in part bootstrapped on Minix but it contains no Minix code at all and was built with GNU tools.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#125

Post by lproven »

numpad0 wrote: post #61
MegaDeKay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

The one put under an open license is just one of numerous forks. The code on RasPi is a different fork modified downstream.

I believe I said as much in TFA.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#126

Post by lproven »

MarkSweep wrote: post #117
robot wrote: post #116

It is not open source. The source code is open but with an evaluation, i.e. proprietary license: https://github.com/azure-rtos/threadx/blob/master/LICENSE.tx...

With the odd provision that you can only ship the software on certain devices: https://github.com/azure-rtos/threadx/blob/master/LICENSED-H...

Article author/submitter here.

This is out of date; the announcement was only days ago, which is why I wrote TFA, and they've not updated the licence files on Github yet.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#127

Post by lproven »

joezydeco wrote: post #103
lproven wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article author/submitter here. > I didn't realize you had to put "Raspberry Pi" in the headline to get traction. Yes, this was my theory. I was guessing most people hadn't heard of ThreadX and didn't know what it was or that it was used in devices they already owned. That is the sort of info that gets stuff read and shared.

Mods just yanked "Raspberry Pi" from the headline. Interesting.

Yes, it is. I wonder why. There is nothing factually inaccurate or anything here.

I know of ThreadX and its use in the Pi was why. I noted that most of the existing coverage of the move to FOSS didn't mention it, and realised that the writers didn't know. That's why I wrote the article.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#128

Post by lproven »

greggsy wrote: post #102

> [ThreadX firmware binary] runs on the Pi's VideoCore GPU. This is the primary device, the part that boots up the Pi and controls its hardware: the Arm cores are slave devices to the VideoCore GPU. Very interesting factoid - I had no idea.

Lots of people don't. That's why I wrote this article.

Re: Microsoft open-sources ThreadX

#130

Post by lproven »

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.

AFAICT these comments are from a merged submission of a different link. If I may say so, @dang, that's a bad idea: if it is same URL then merge it, but if it's different coverage then don't. IMHO.

Anyway, I wrote this version and I did explain what an RTOS is. I think the other submission used to link to the Eclipse announcement, and they didn't. (A bad sign.)

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