TRON: The Unknown Open-Source?

jordandeamattson writes "Over on CNN there is a very interesting article about Tron, an open-source real-time operating system from Japan first developed and distributed in the early 1980s. The claim is that it is more widely distributed than Windows (in some 3 billion devices world-wide), that the developer (Ken Sakamura, a University professor) would be worth mucho if he had just charged for it, and that Microsoft/U.S. goverment used trade rules (Super 301) to block it adoption by schools in Japan. Check it out for an interesting read and a 'what might have been ...'" (Here's a previous mention of Tron from March about MontaVista's work to combine it with Linux.)

Comments

Re:TRON is an "embedded" operating system...

[grub]

How can you compare the two?

Because this is Slashdot, silly! :)

In reality, comparison against another embedded/tiny OS would have made more sense; QNX for example.

bad economics.... bad forbes!

[Transient0]

From the Article:

Had Sakamura decided to charge even one cent to each user of TRON, he would easily be a dollar billionaire by now, possibly even rivalling Gates, reputed to be the world's richest man with a fortune estimated at $43 billion by Forbes magazine.

This is a pretty unfounded claim. The truth is that this is a relatively simple system we are talking baout here. If Sakamura had been charging for TRON it seems relatively likely that either hundreds of competitors would have sprung up to grab a slice of the pie or that someone else would simply have released a similar open source product. In either case, although Sakamura would probably have made some money, assuming $43 billion is just silly.

1989? Microsoft??

[Zeinfeld]

Story is out of whack. In 1989 Microsoft Windows barely worked and the machines of the day barely had the processing power.

It is more likely that the trade barrier being described would be for sale of hardware rather than for software. I can't see the US Govt getting up in a lather about the MSDOS license fee.

The other issue the story ignores is that there would not be as many copies of the O/S if there was a charge of a cent a copy.

The most widely used O/S is embedded on some smartcard or other...

more like Losing Nemo

[yerricde]

Yes we may be a heartless, monopolistic company

Tell me about it.

but we're not that other heartless monopolistic company who doesn't like open source.

Microsoft uses open-source software in its Services For UNIX product. Many of its userland network programs (ping, ftp, etc) are based on those from BSD. But then again, Microsoft put a provision into the license for its C library banning linking with copylefted code, even where the copylefted code's license would otherwise allow it (e.g. "operating system" exception in the GNU GPL), so I guess you're right.

We at Disney love open source.

Then why hasn't Disney released Mickey Mouse as open source? Nine out of ten copyright scholars agree that it's time for the company to move on to a new cash cow.

God bless you, Mr. Sakamura.

[NoData]

Fromt the article:

"It's not good to charge people for using something which is like a social infrastructure. It also inhibits the development of the computer industry. The very basic infrastructure should be free," he said.

"But Mr Gates is free to do whatever he wants, as we live in a world of capitalism."


A man who's got it right.
Why can't we (in the western world) get this type of soft-spoken wisdom to be the face of OSS, and not the curmudgeonly off-putting geekazoidness of RMS?

2 Best Quotes

[truthsearch]

Since no one RTFA (but me :) here's 2 really good quotes:

"It's not good to charge people for using something which is like a social infrastructure. It also inhibits the development of the computer industry. The very basic infrastructure should be free," he said.

Should? I don't know. But it certainly would be a great help to the advancement of the software industry.

Asked about the operating system inside his own computer, Sakamura smiles broadly. "TRON, of course. I don't use Windows."

That's obligatory, but still amusing.

Good to see...

[adamofgreyskull]

I'm glad that this analogy has been represented in a mainstream news-source:

That means the codes making up a program can be obtained free of charge, allowing engineers to modify it according to their needs, like a chef improvising on an original recipe.

This and the whole article's take on "open source" is helpful to the cause by making people understand in their own terms What It's All About(TM). :o)

Unknown?

[femto]

How can TRON be unknown when it running on 60% of the world's microprocessors? (according to the article). Someone knew about it. One could accuse it of not being publicised, but I wouldn't put it in the unknown class.

In actual fact, TRON is one of the standards of the embedded world and most students should hear about it in any embedded/microprocessor course they do.

Re:Home page

[arivanov]

We can make it run on any device

No you cannot. While Nucleus itself may be free, the toolchain and the derivations tuned to specific platforms cost an arm, a leg and a prostetic.

MICROSOFT used trade rules?

[ShinmaWa]

Microsoft/U.S. goverment used trade rules

Ummmmm... WTF?

The article made no mention that Microsoft did anything whatsoever to block TRON using trade rules or anything else for that matter. There are only three mentions of Microsoft in the article.

1. having developed an operating system that is more widely used than even Microsoft Corp's Windows
2. What sets the two systems apart -- and the fortunes of Sakamura and Gates -- is that while Windows must be bought from Microsoft, TRON is distributed free of charge
3. When it was first revealed in 1984, TRON, which can be modified for use on personal computers, was hailed in Japan as a homemade software which could break the dominance of Microsoft and free Japanese computer firms from the burden of paying for the basic software

I'm not sure of how much dominance Microsoft had in 1984!! These were the days of the Commodore 64 and Apple ][. The IBM compatible wasn't a market leader at the time -- let alone Microsoft. Microsoft didn't have the money nor the clout to block anything.

Re:MICROSOFT used trade rules?

[mcc]

From the article:

When it was first revealed in 1984, TRON, which can be modified for use on personal computers, was hailed in Japan as a homemade software which could break the dominance of Microsoft and free Japanese computer firms from the burden of paying for the basic software.

But the dream was shattered in 1989 when the United States threatened to designate TRON as an unfair trade barrier under its Super 301 trade law when it learned of plans by the Japanese government to use the software for computers in schools.

While Washington in the end did not name TRON as a trade barrier, the Japanese government abandoned the plan and many computer firms severed ties with TRON, fearful of angering the United States, their biggest market.

I believe the article submitter's point was not that Microsoft blocked the adoption, but that the U.S. government blocked the adoption essentially on Microsoft's behalf. They may or may not have specifically wanted to benefit Microsoft, but Microsoft was the beneficiary. Their intention, one assumes, would have been "to protect U.S. desktop operating system makers", but in 1989 that meant Microsoft and, well, Microsoft.

This still sounds awfully wierd, i'm surprised the U.S. would be able to get away with something like that and I suspect the cnn.com author *may* be glossing over something, but that's not the article submitters' fault. What's Super 301? Is there any documentation of this act besides this article? I'd go look, but I have to go run to the airport to drop someone off sorry -_-

gentle dig at the American religion of capitalism

[dpilot]

I like this line, and IMHO it illustrates much of what is wrong with the USA, today.

Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate any sort of move to Communism or Socialism, or anything like that.

But Capitalism is good as a motivator. Greed is a powerful motivator. But it doesn't belong in the same basket as 'air', 'water', 'food', and such. Maybe in the short term, it can sit in the same basket as 'sex'.

But in the USA, it appears that we've turned Capitalism (perhaps more precisely, greed) into a religion. IMHO this particular shuffling of priorities causes an unstable situation.

Simple demonstration:
Want to increase profits?
Move jobs overseas, paying 'local' wages.
Profit!!! ...but that's not the end of the story...

Everybody does it, too many jobs move overseas.
Nobody at home can afford your prices, because they're unemployed.
Overseas they can't afford your prices, because you never paid them enough.

Is the profit sustainable, or have you simply ransacked the commons? (one-time)

Again, not proposing Communism, but to say that Capitalism can exist without a Commons is myopic.

Re:Home page

[RevAaron]

I can: a) see if Microsoft Windows CE supports it, and if not either give up and use the CPU they want me to use or pay thousands for them to support my xxx_yyy CPU, or b) port Linux to it myself freely in a couple of days.

Or c) you could port WinCE to your hardware in about the same amount of time as you would Linux. There would be money involved in becoming a WinCE licencee, of course- but if you're a hardware manufacturer, that amount of money is relatively trivial. MS doesn't hand out the source for CE to everyone (well, it does now with the "shared source" release, but let's pretend here), but if you're going to be shipping CE on your devices, the full source is part of the license deal.

You can't have really thought that all those machines that run CE are all just some standard hardware platform, same instruction set, same line of CPUs, same bus, same misc hardware, same hardware bootloader, same BIOS or BIOS equivalent... If a manufacturer wants to create a device that runs CE or Linux, it usually involves a bit or porting and adaptation, unless it's standard PC hardware.

And, FYI, you've got TRON running in your home, somewhere, if you're an average American consumer with credit cards that you use. Every American uses TRON, somehow, at least 2 or 3 times a day.

I don't doubt that I've used TRON many times without knowing it- likewise, I've used QNX, vxWorks, OS/2, Linux, Windows CE and a bucketload of other OSes without being vaguely aware of it.

Do I have TRON running on my credit card? If not, how am I using TRON with my CC in my home? I don't have a CC reader or any POS hardware.

Anyway, my point wasn't "TRON sucks," but more so contending your statement about Linux being able to cleanly replace TRON. Linux could be used for most of what TRON could, provided time and money was spent adapting it to purposes for which TRON already works very well. Along the same lines, if one had the time and money to spend, Windows could be adapted to doing everything that Linux does now.