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Lineo Pays To License Real-Time Linux Capability

Posted by timothy on from the now-how-much-would-you-pay?- dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Embedded linux vendor Lineo has apparently caved in to Victor Yodaiken, and become the first software company to publicly announce the licensing of Yodaiken's patented process for running a general purpose operating system (such as Linux) as a task under a real-time kernel(such as RTLinux or RTAI)."

There's a special report at LinuxDevices which includes . . .

  • text of the Lineo press release
  • comments from Victor Yodaiken
  • news of a non-patented open source alternative ("Adeos")
  • a reference list about RTLinux and the RTLinux patent
  • a whitepaper about Adeos
There's an interesting quote where Yodaiken claims his patent will help open source."

10 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. I'm not seeing a problem here... by joshamania · · Score: 5, Informative

    Perhaps I'm wrong, but:

    This License governs the royalty-free use of the process defined by U.S. Patent No. 5,995,745. Anyone can license the use of the Patented Process by agreeing to be bound by the terms of this License. Such person is considered to be the Licensee ("Licensee"). The Patented Process may be used, without any payment of a royalty, with two (2) types of software. The first type is software that operates under the terms of a GPL (as defined later in this License). The second type is software operating under Finite State Machine Labs Open RTLinux (as defined below). As long as the Licensee complies with the terms and conditions of this License and, where applicable, with the terms of the GPL, the Licensee may continue to use the Patented Process without paying a royalty for its use. You may use the Patented Process with software other than the two types mentioned above but you must first obtain a separate license for such use. The first step is to contact Finite State Machine Labs (www.fsmlabs.com).

    That reads okay to me. Very similar to the GPL (in a sense). You don't have to pay unless you are charging people for it.

    1. Re:I'm not seeing a problem here... by Ed+Avis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That sounds okay... the patent is licensed freely for use in any GPLed software. This would appear to conform to the GPL's provisions about patents (basically, you may not distribute the program without also granting a licence for any applicable patents) and it looks reasonable from common sense.

      It's not demanding any special fee for commercial use, so it counts as free software still (aka Open Source etc etc).

      At least, from the paragraph you quoted above everything seems fine. It would still be better for everyone if patent offices would refrain from granting monopolies on abstract ideas however...

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  2. Is this a bad thing? by Foggy+Tristan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe I'm a little naive, but it seems like the patent basically makes any attempt to cash in on the technology null and void, essentially keeping free software free.

    I could an uproar if Victor was charging for the license, but he's explicitly not charging it for, and I can see where that would be beneficial.

    Patents are a tool. In the wrong hands, they hurt; in the right hands, they don't.

    --
    Beware typoes.
  3. Anyone use a RT Linux in the field? by JWhitlock · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'm working for a company that works with hard real-time systems, and I've been pondering testing Linux where we are currently using a propriatary system. While I don't like the idea of supporting a software patent, I'd still consider it if it was cheaper and was truly hard real-time (certain tasks are guarenteed to execute within a certain amount of time).

    Anyone have experience with one of these real-time Linux systems? How good are they at hard-real time tasks? I'd especially be interested in simulator applications.

  4. real-time in user space by tim_maroney · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Here's an interesting bit from an interview with Victor Yodaiken.
    We have a new ability for real-time signal handlers in user tasks, where the user process makes an rtlinux_sigaction which will work like the POSIX sigaction, except the signal handlers run in realtime and there's an extension to allow us to catch periodic interrupts. As a result, the user process can designate a function to operate within hard real-time deadlines. And those functions run in the address space of that process, so they can share data with the process, and call functions libraries of the process.

    That'll be very useful for high-bandwidth multimedia playback, which currently seems to be a problem for some UNIX-based systems such as Mac OS X. Is anyone looking at a Darwin port?

    Tim

  5. Not the only (or best) game on the market by cduffy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    [Disclaimer: I work for MontaVista, and so am as biased as they come]

    Interesting, that is. However, I doubt it'll gain them much.

    MontaVista has been doing work on real-time Linux also -- not by putting another layer on top of or underneath the kernel, but by making it highly preemptible. Nigel Gamble (the fellow who did IRIX's real-time capabilities) has put together a patch which permits for some extremely low latencies. There are some other folks here working on the same thing. This has side-benefits for folks running SMP boxen, even if they don't need real-time capabilities, by making the spinlocks much more fine-grained. This patch is truly open source, and will hopefully some day make it into the mainline kernel.

    We've recently inked a deal with Concurrent (http://www.ccur.com/corporate/pr/pr_208.html) that real-time folks might find interesting (as Concurrent has some interesting tools) and much of our real-time work has been known to readers of linux-kernel for quite some time. Additionally, our real-time patches are included in the kernels distributed with our products.

    Note that I'm on a different project, so my knowledge of the real-time work we do is quite fuzzy. Suffice to say that we've got a highly preemptible Linux kernel already, and that it's still being improved. Hopefully someone else from MontaVista with better direct knowledge will also post.

  6. Hey, what about a sense of history here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Years ago, IBM had a realtime system kernel that ran on 360/370/43xx hardware called CP or control program. You ran the os of your choice on a virtual machine presented to you by CP. Oddly enough one of the uses for this was a port of UNIX to 360/370 type hardware. Others were typically VM-CMS for virtual machine cambridge monitor system aka virtual machine conversational monitor system, cics or "kicks" to name a few. Why is this not prior art where in one runs an ordinary os on top of a real time kernel? Why is the Yodaiken patent invalidated by the prior art of IBM? Would IBM license its rights to the same idea and reduction to art to the Linux community now that IBM is big on Linux? Why do we have to tolerate bogus patents and constant shake downs by those with the bogus patents. I thought the burden of showing the non-existance of prior art was on the potential patent filer and not the rest of us. Just asking. Does anyone else know of similar but different prior art for the so-called new idea of running an os as a task on a realtime kernel? Basically I am for innovation but it has the odd property that it has to be new.

  7. Re:I don't see any problems by Arandir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The hypocrisy of the Free Software Movement(tm) has become so commonplace that it doesn't even surprise me anymore. First, since "software should not be owned" you're supposed to copyright it. Second, since software should be unrestricted, you should place it under a restrictive license.

    Now, patents are evil, so lets all patent our ideas! This is not how patents should be! There should not be patents for algorithms, formulas or processes. Specifically, there should not be any patents for software unless they are non-algorithmic, novel, and unintuitive to a practitioner in the field.

    No software covered by a patent can possibly meet the Free Software Definition.

    --
    A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
  8. Y'all misunderstand by alhaz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And it would help if you actually read the documents for which links are provided.

    What Lineo has done is paid for the right to tell customers "Yes, the Yodaiken patent is not a problem, it's been taken care of" when offering a /different/ hard-real-time linux technology, RTAI.

    Lineo doesn't use, and doesn't plan to use, RTLinux. They're heavily vested in RTAI. Just got tired of customers asking "What about the Yodaiken patent?!"

    You'd know that, if you'd read more than the submission.

    --
    This is just like television, only you can see much further.
  9. nothing good will come of this by janpod66 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I believe the patent is an example of the kinds of bad patents granted these days: technology that was already obvious to people decades ago and even used in some commercial systems, but not patented at the time because the patent system doesn't allow it and not written up at the time because it was too trivial.

    It doesn't matter whether this patent is used to protect free software or whether the inventor allows GPL'ed software to use it, it is still a bad patent. It also doesn't matter that commercial entities are using patents that are just as bogus.

    Now, a portfolio of good, strong patents used in this way might, in fact, help free software.