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TRON Enters Alliance With Microsoft

Posted by timothy on from the sound-of-mechanical-breathing dept.

David writes "As widely reported on OSNews.com, Forbes, IDG, CNet, AustralianIT, and Ashi Shimbun - Microsoft Corp. has entered into an alliance with the T-engine Forum, the consortium behind the free software TRON operating system. As TRON runs billions of devices worldwide, this will help Microsoft's goal of cementing WinCE / .NET in places as diverse as your toaster and cell phone, perhaps in a setup similar to how X-Windows is in relation to the Linux kernel." (Continued below.)

David continues: "This arrangement is ironic, as Microsoft is part of the reason why the U.S. in the 1980s prevented Japan from putting TRON into schools on the desktop by account of trade rules, which would've meant Linux may've never gone beyond being a footnote in the comp.os.minix archives. No doubt Microsoft is aiming to keep Linux out of the embedded space, and may in the long-term foster an environment where using anything other than industry-licenced OS software on the desktop becomes unviable for everyday tasks because all the infratructurial systems we take for granted today like radio, television, phones, IM, require Palladium-style walled gardens."

6 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. But... by condour75 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll never believe it... Tron fights for the users. He'd never work for the MCP.

  2. Oh Well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Better than having to pay an extra $699 to SCO for my toaster.

  3. This one is very obvious by Neo-Rio-101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My first reaction to this is that here is Microsoft trying to stem the tide against the proposed OS that China, Japan, and Korea are thinking about.

    In Japan, Microsoft has a fair bit of prestige... unlike, say, in Europe or the US where MS's reputation is sullied by the anti-trust suits. The Japanese, IMO, don't really think that the general public minds MS dominance... but then the Japanese wouldn't say openly that they hate MS or anything. Plus most IT workers would be thrilled to work for MS Japan... they have lots of cash after all. There seems to be no debate here about "which OS is better" like there is in other western countries.

    --
    READY.
    PRINT ""+-0
  4. Re:Shoot me now! by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Too late, they already put Windows on my gun, and it just keeps rebooting when I pull the trigger."

    I tried to commit suicide using a Linux based gun. Unfortunately, by the time I figured out the right switches for the sht command, I felt better!

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  5. Re:Shoot me now! by dvdeug · · Score: 5, Funny

    Unfortunately, by the time I figured out the right switches for the sht command, I felt better!

    RTFM. It's sht [options] [caliber] [number of bullets], where -l is for lead bullets, -number is how you specify the number of the body part you want to shoot (where the default is in the air), -h for high velocity, and -q for auto reload. How much easier could it get?

  6. Window CE is just one of the middlewares for TE by pario · · Score: 5, Informative
    Everyone here seems to have missed the main point. This alliance only means that Microsoft will create a version of Windows CE .NET that runs on the T-Engine platform. T-Engine is a collection of standards for embedded hardware, realtime operating system and middlewares, and for the T-Engine platform Windows CE .NET will be just one of the middlewares. This news is not even about Microsoft taking over TRON or MS vs Java; in fact, there are T-Java and T-Linux under development, by Sun and Montavista, respectively, and other GUI middlewares on sale, which were originally part of BTRON, the TRON desktop OS. Most information about T-Engine is available only in Japanese at this point, but you can find some in English here.

    As a sidenote, the main thrust of the T-Engine platform is high portabilty of middlewares across various embedded emvironments with different CPUs. This portabilty is made possible by a standard opensource kernel, which is based on micro-ITRON 3.0, and standalization of hardware. Dr. Sakamura even said he is going to fix the specification of the realtime kernel by the end of year and it will not be changed for the next HUNDRED years for the sake of comatibilty of middlewares. Moreover, there are rumors that a subsidary of Panasonic is developing a desktop operating system based on T-Engine. This is a very exciting year for the TRON project indeed.