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QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

blackberry.qnx.com

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Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#221

Post by Teever »

tcbawo wrote: post #205
Teever wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine is working on this OS: https://gitlab.com/uxrt

I see this was submitted to HN a couple times over the last few years and has not received any comments. Can you describe the goals and status of this project? Does it fit into any larger ecosystem? Is it a research project or intended for eventual mainstream adoption?

I'll start by saying that micro-kernel OS development is a bit beyond my skill set but I can tell you that the goal is more or less to make an open source QNX with features from Plan 9 that is suitable for desktop use and higher level embedded platforms.

I'm not sure what you mean by larger ecosystem but a compatibility layer with Linux binaries is on the feature list. You can read the extremely detailed architecture notes document here[0]

It is absolutely intended for mainstream adoption and the project has recently received interest and funding from a very large OEM. I don't want to say who it is because I am not certain if they want it publicized yet. It's probably okay for me to say but I'm erring on the side of caution.

If you or anyone you know is interested in contributing to the project let me know or reach out to Andrew Warkentin on gitlab.[1]

[0] https://gitlab.com/uxrt/uxrt-toplevel/-/blob/master/architec... [1] https://gitlab.com/andreww591

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#222

Post by gmueckl »

intern4tional wrote: post #195
sov wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any commercial rtos shop where QNX may be appropriate is either using 1. some wacky expensive proprietary rtos that you've never heard of, 2. freertos or 3. real-time linux depending on what they need. asking what makes QNX a compelling rtos when freertos exists, is widely supported and used, and has an MIT license is a very valid question. further, no one in embedded actually cares what RTOS you used. they are all s…

QNX is heavily used in industries where functional safety or particular high assurance models are required. Sure FreeRTOS has a SafeRTOS mode, but its not sufficiently functional for a modern ADAS stack or complex robotics systems. QNX is used in all major automotive companies around the world for a reason, and a crucial part of NVIDIA's DriveOS stack.

QNX is in a space with few competitors. FreeRTOS or ThreadX are designed to provide microcontrollers with scheduling and memory management functionality. They don't depend on fancy things like MMUs or provide frameworks for networking or file systems out for the box. The flipside is that you can compile them down to maybe 30kB of machine code.

QNX is designed for more powerful and featureful hardware to drive a software stack with true process isolation and generally provide the bells and whistles of general purpose OS on top of a hard realtime core. It can run complex GUIs without sacrificing its real time capabilities. Not many competitors live in that particular space.

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#223

Post by nickpsecurity »

indolering wrote: post #198
ranger_danger wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe seL4 is formally verified.

Verified worst case execution time analysis. So instead of just hanging on it until it achieves the desired responsiveness (like QNX and rt Linux) Sel4 can actually back up its claim.

In that case, you’re just hanging on the specs, prover, compiler, and other dependencies. Things most developers can’t even begin to verify. That also assumes the hardware works which isn’t safe if talking about cosmic rays.

Empirical testing of “verified” software often found errors, too. High-assurance, security certification used to require formal methods, thorough testing of code, review of anrtifacts, and pen testing by independent team. We should do that today.

In this case, you’d do white box and black box testing of the WCETS of seL4.

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#224

Post by jonaias »

sitzkrieg wrote: post #108
PaulHoule wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I wonder how many applications really need more real time responsiveness than you can get out of Linux. We even have https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/real-time-linux-is-o... If I use Linux I know I won't have to have a discussion about licensing, I know I won't get rug pulled, etc. Also the ban on commercial use is heinous. I am going through this with Arangodb right now. I love the product, but I have no…

rt linux is not appropriate for many hard realtime requirements i have seen some try and fail in an effort to save $perceived_value

RT Linux is not the only alternative. There are now plenty of options for achieving hard real-time performance without relying on proprietary RTOS solutions:

  Dedicated Real-Time Cores: Many SoCs include dedicated cores specifically for hard real-time tasks.
  Microcontroller Companions: Pairing a microcontroller running a lightweight RTOS with a larger, general-purpose processor as a supervisor (You can use normal Linux).
  FPGAs: Custom FPGA implementations can deliver deterministic timing where ultra-low latency or specialized processing is needed.
And ofc, RT Linux, that in my experience is suitable for over 80% of hard real-time applications (an estimation, based on experience as a former user—your mileage may vary).

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#225

Post by blackoil »

hinkley wrote: post #151
baby_souffle wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was worse than an NDA! You also had to start your application with a trip to a notary to get your ID confirmed. And if their signing servers were down…You couldn’t load had just compiled onto your own dev / test device. I loved using my blackberry but I hated developing against it. Bb10 was its own little adventure but had similar draconian dx

One of the dirty secrets of the mobile industry, particularly before Apple showed up and spoiled all the fun, was how many execs and chunks of the ethos were airlifted out of Ma Bell. The kind of moat-building we're seeing take over the internet over the last couple decades is something that mobile carriers already had in heaps. It was also common for carriers to extort very high fees from anyone selling apps on thei…

Was this North America specific. I remember using sdk/dev tools for Symbian. I don't remember timelines, so maybe they changed after iPhone release.

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#226

Post by Brian_K_White »

winocm wrote: post #194
karmakaze wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working as intended. If they don't want to share, then they can't benefit.

It's not so much that as there is the net-negative side effect of having people redo the same work over and over again at their day job or whatever. It horrifies me when I think about the number of hours of people's lives wasted on things like that. It applies to both sides of the argument, with organizations keeping things to themselves or others avoiding codebases for the inverse reason.

But who cares if someone chooses to redo work they didn't have to? I don't care about that at all. Self inflicted wound.

They presumably can salve that horrible wound with all the money they get (not make or earn, just get) from their chosen modus operundi.

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#227

Post by EasyMark »

parl_match wrote: post #118

Why would I use QNX for any project when RTOS Linux is mature? Why would I care? So you can rug-pull license changes? Should I use it because it's cute? It's academically interesting? Sure, I've used QNX in the past for those reasons. The next time I pick a soc for a project, and its associated bsp, I'm not going to look for QNX. I'm either going to use whatever freertos distro they include or install the android bui…

Name/reputation still means a lot to some people, as does not learning yet another OS. Not everyone cares if something is FOSS or not. Different people have different leaning when it comes to this stuff, and that shouldn't be surprising.

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#228

Post by EasyMark »

xp84 wrote: post #159
KerrAvon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS has very strict process/resource management because it wants to preserve both available RAM (for responsiveness) and your battery life. I wouldn't call it cheating (even in jest); it's a very deliberately and carefully designed feature of the OS.

Sure, and that's fair, but to me the "cheating" is more about how it is limited to only certain types of computing. On a Mac, or indeed any non-Apple OS since Windows 3.1, you've been able to for instance, start a long-running, resource-intensive process like encoding a video, minimize that window, and open say, Minesweeper or read a text file for an hour, all knowing that the OS wouldn't dare interfere with your bac…

most people just want a phone, to check email, watch a youtube video, check tiktak, etc. they don't want to do serious computing on their phone. I'm in that crowd. I have more computers than you can throw a stick at, I don't need that out of my phone.

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#229

Post by johnklos »

Animats wrote: post #45

If only you could believe them. QNX has been "opened" twice before. Each time, there was a rug pull, and it went closed again. Before the first rug pull, open source groups routinely added QNX to their target list. There was a Firefox for QNX. Eclipse had QNX as a target. GCC and most of the Gnu command line tools could be built for QNX. There was a desktop environment, Photon. I used that as a primary desktop for th…

So it's not just me. I asked for a license to do pkgsrc package building on QNX, got rejected, and couldn't even get a human to respond to my messages with anything that didn't resemble a copied-and-pasted form response.

They gave the impression at the time that they really couldn't be bothered with open source. This just happened to be not long after 2010.

Re: QNX is now free for anything non-commercial, plus there's an RPi image

#230

Post by nickpsecurity »

snvzz wrote: post #170
Animats wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QNX is a microkernel-based real time operating system. The kernel is tiny; it was about 60KB (not MB) twenty years ago. All the kernel does is message passing, timers, CPU dispatching, and memory allocation. Everything else is in user space, including file systems. Everything is a message, rather than being a file. Messaging works like a function call - you send a block of data to another process, wait, and get a rep…

>Microkernel done right. That'd be seL4.

So, we have to look at our requirements first. QNX systems want performance, UNIX compatibility, increased reliability/security, field-proven, and supportable. They want certain features that increase developer productivity, too. You can run a lot of stuff on QNX within its existing security expectations.

Whereas, seL4 is a separation kernel. It does almost nothing but with high security. To do anything, you have to add software to it that can undermine its security or performance claims at a system level. These are also unproven additions most people know nothing about. That overall deal might be fine if one component being ultra-secure is your highest goal.

QNX is usually better than seL4 for most needs. Even security people because they’ll want useful functionality which they’d have to secure on seL4 anyway.

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