In this whitepaper, Michael Barr of Embedded Systems Programming provides an overview of the broad assortment of “open source” licenses (and nonlicenses) that are in use today, and sheds some light on their differences and subtleties. Barr discusses: proprietary software, shareware, free software, public domain software, GPL, LGPL, open source, and community source. (more…)

One of the more confusing aspects of the open source phenomenon is the proliferation of different source code licensing schemes. If you are considering using software developed by others within your products, you'll probably want to have an intellectual property lawyer read the individual license agreements in detail and summarize your rights. (more…)

In this feature article, LinuxDevices.com's Rick Lehrbaum draws on inputs from seven “real-time experts” to put together a comprehensive definition of real-time, probe the issues associated with obtaining adequate real-time performance in Linux systems, and understand some of the alternative real-time Linux approaches. Lehrbaum writes . . . (more…)

Pittsburgh, PA — (press release) — TimeSys Corporation announces enhancements to its TimeSys Linux/RT operating system distribution that makes the Linux kernel preemptable. This new feature significantly enhances hard real-time responsiveness by minimizing waiting times for higher priority real-time tasks. (more…)

TimeSys has joined the chorus of responses to MontaVista Software's recent press release entitled “MontaVista First to Deliver Hard Real-Time Linux” [story]. Following is the text of the TimeSys statement . . . (more…)

In this whitepaper, Marco Pantaleoni of Linuxcare Italia provides an overview of Etlinux, an embedded Linux distribution developed by the Italian company, PROSA (subsequently acquired by Linuxcare). Pantaleoni writes . . . (more…)

Sunnyvale, CA — (press release) — MontaVista Software, Inc., developer of the Hard Hat Linux operating system for embedded applications today announced over $23 million in equity investments from a number of investors including WR Hambrecht + Co., RRE Ventures, US Venture Partners, and Alloy Ventures. (more…)

During the course of the past week, there's been an increasingly lively discussion (and debate) about the real-time characteristics of Linux, and over which approach is best. As a result, questions like these are starting to become more and more common . . .

• What does “real-time” mean?
• Who (or what) needs real-time, anyhow?
• How much real-time is really needed?
• What are the… (more…)

Sam Williams, writing at Upside Today, offers a journalist's-eye perspective of the recent action in the real-time Linux space, and proves that even something as “dry” as real-time operating systems can be fun and exciting. As they say, “That's entertainment!” (Stay tuned for some in-depth analysis and commentary on this subject, here at LinuxDevices.com.) Williams writes . (more…)

This article by LinuxDevices.com's Rick Lehrbaum describes a tiny webserver device, built on a 1.1″ x 0.9″ PC board, that only requires the addition of +5V DC power and an Ethernet connector to function as a standalone webserver. It's made by NetMedia, which was founded by Artisoft founder Jack Schoof (remember LANtastic?), and will be sold in the $25-$35 range in small quantities. (more…)

Sunnyvale, CA — (press release) — MontaVista Software, Inc., developer of the Hard Hat Linux operating system for embedded applications, today announced it received an equity investment from Intel Capital. The agreement will help ensure that MontaVista's software will take advantage of the architectural benefits of the Intel XScale microarchitecture and the Intel StrongARM and IA-32 processor families. (more…)

NetMedia has announced “the world's smallest Ethernet webserver.” It's implemented as a tiny 1.1″ x 0.9″ PC board, and only requires the addition of +5V DC power and an Ethernet connector to function as a standalone webserver. Now, get this: the tiny plug-and-play webserver will be priced at just $39 for a single unit, $30 each for 100, $20 for 100,000 — and, it's just $12 each, if you happen to need a… (more…)

Embedded Systems

Many readers are most likely already familiar with Moore's law. In the 60's, Gordon Moore predicted that the level of integration of transistors on silicon wafers would double ever year. In other words, every year, the industry would be able to double the amount of transistors on a 1 cm chip with respect to the previous year — an exponential rate of growth. (more…)

Dallas, TX — (press release) — Simple Network Magic Corporation (SNMC) announced the release of TLWonder, a GUI-based tool for generating TL1 Agent software for embedded systems. The program is part of a suite of applications and utilities known as QuickStack. SNMC has used components of TLWonder to successfully develop embedded TL1 agents for several telecommunications systems. (more…)

Korean firms PalmPalm Technology and M-dream have unveiled a strategic cooperation aimed at running a Linux video game, Puzzle Bubble, on a new Linux-based CDMA/IMT2000 cellular phone that is slated to begin shipments this November in Korea. The phone, which uses PalmPalm's Tynux embedded Linux as its internal operating system, is a joint development of PalmPalm Technology and the SK Telecom Central R&D… (more…)