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Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

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Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#71

Post by fgonzag »

bri3d wrote: post #66
finnn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to elaborate on what you believe makes the GPL a non-FOSS license?

It definitely limits the freedom of both the author and user, by restricting the means in which the software may be distributed and the limiting author's right to add additional restrictions (the "all distributions must adhere to these restrictions but can't add more" clause which makes it incompatible with the Apple App Store, for example). It's "Free" in the Free Software Foundation sense but not really in the way…

It limits the freedom of the author yes. It severely expands the freedom of the user. That is the whole point of the license, any user has the code available to modify, inspect, or audit himself. I don't see how you think that it limits the freedom of the user too.

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#72

Post by fgonzag »

inamberclad wrote: post #43
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #39

>Amazon FreeRTOS ... and extends it with software libraries that make it easy to securely connect your small, low-power devices to AWS cloud services why do IoT devices have to connect to the cloud? Is there any legitimate use case other than reporting data gathered on the customer? Why do have all these gadgets have to snoop on us?

If you're going to sell a consumer an internet connected device, they're probably going to assume that it'll work on its own and they can review and adjust things on a website (that isn't a 192.0.0.*)

Sadly, thats the IoT world I want to live in. All the devices communicate only through the internal network. This increases security a ton by default.

If you want to use it outside your network, then you do it the old fashioned way, by setting up a vpn to your router.

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#73

Post by ianhowson »

fgonzag wrote: post #72
inamberclad wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to sell a consumer an internet connected device, they're probably going to assume that it'll work on its own and they can review and adjust things on a website (that isn't a 192.0.0.*)

Sadly, thats the IoT world I want to live in. All the devices communicate only through the internal network. This increases security a ton by default. If you want to use it outside your network, then you do it the old fashioned way, by setting up a vpn to your router.

I've shipped a few products that work like this, but the support burden is incredible. Practically no users are capable of configuring IP addresses or forwarding ports on their router.

Config-by-phone or config-by-cloud is definitely the way to go for consumer gear -- see Roku or Chromecast for great examples.

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#74

Post by ianhowson »

dmoy wrote: post #24
Hasz wrote: post #23

What's the advantage of a RTOS?

Been awhile since I dealt with microcontrollers, but my recollection is that some non-trivial amount of things have to be done by a RTOS. For example if your thing is attached to a sensor that spits out 47 bytes of sensor data every N clock cycles, and has a buffer that is 94 bytes, then you damn well better be reading that thing every N*2 clock cycles with a hard guarantee that your routine is finished copying all 9…

It's worth noting that very few devices using an RTOS actually have real-time constraints. In practice, "RTOS" just means "operating system for an embedded device".

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#75

Post by fgonzag »

hoodoof wrote: post #47

My money is on Linux based RTOS platforms. It's a bit of a surprise that Amazon has backed a non-Linux horse in this race.

As a former embedded SW engineer, I'm willing to put money against it (for 99% of the use cases for micro controllers by volume), most of the ones I worked with were 8 or 16 bit, had at most 1 MB of volatile storage, and you were lucky if you had 1 MB of RAM to work with.

For my area at least, we're talking about the microcontrollers for your car's key fob, your car's instrument cluster, etc. Every electronic component in your car has an embedded microcontroller connected to the CAN bus. And cost is a big issue.

High end electronic might contain more powerful micro controllers, but I doubt that by volume it makes a significant percentage of the microcontrollers in circulation.

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#76

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #33
wiradikusuma wrote: post #30

What devices (not chip) on the market that they support? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

They list 4 dev boards on their website, from Microchip, NXP, STM and TI. With the exception of the PIC from microchip it looks like they are all ARM based. Will be exciting to see if the ESP 32 becomes supported, since it already supports regular FreeRTOS

And they already habe AWS IoT support in their SDK.

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#78

Post by retSava »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #30

What devices (not chip) on the market that they support? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

In the FAQ they mention that >64kB RAM is required. That doesn't answer your question, but it helps narrow down the answer. It runs over MQTT.

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#79

Post by ianhowson »

hoodoof wrote: post #47

My money is on Linux based RTOS platforms. It's a bit of a surprise that Amazon has backed a non-Linux horse in this race.

This is a common sentiment and I have a lot to say on the topic, so I'll try to keep it brief:

- You want to keep manufacturing costs low so you can make more money.

- Running Linux requires a relatively large CPU with an MMU and a lot of RAM and Flash. This adds significant cost -- $5-$20 per unit.

- Some devices do enough local processing that they have this hardware anyway (routers, streaming TV widgets, smartphones). In this case, you might as well just run Linux and take advantage of the big software ecosystem.

- Most devices do not require such big hardware. This is where you want something like FreeRTOS (or smaller!) so you can ship smaller, cheaper hardware.

Re: Amazon FreeRTOS – IoT operating system for microcontrollers

#80

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

notatoad wrote: post #53
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #39

>Amazon FreeRTOS ... and extends it with software libraries that make it easy to securely connect your small, low-power devices to AWS cloud services why do IoT devices have to connect to the cloud? Is there any legitimate use case other than reporting data gathered on the customer? Why do have all these gadgets have to snoop on us?

Why do internet of things devices have to connect to the internet? Because that's the whole definition of them. Without an internet connection, it's just a thing.

devices could be connected on a home network, without calling home.
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