Wind River Moving Towards Linux

Hmm by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 02:31 · Score: 5, Funny

Guess they are trying to get full value out of thir $699 payment.

Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 03:19 · Score: 3, Informative

As the article states, before anyone gets too excited, they want to use CGL alongside VxWorks, not instead of their proprietary embedded OS. They're not ditching their OS, they're just picking a distro to use for interface, it looks like. Maybe but some hooks in for communications with embedded devices.

Wasnt wind river one of the SCO posterchildren by Crashmarik · 2003-12-01 02:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

Unless I miss recall Darl was citing Wind River as one of the companies involved in the protection of unix IP. I have to wonder if Wind River will have to pierce the corporate veil to slap him with a defamation suit.

Plan A or Plan B Linux Adoption Strategies by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 02:37 · Score: 5, Funny

Plan A - Embrace Linux

Plan B - Close eyes and ears as long as possible, then move to Plan A

Looks like they went for Plan B.

Re:Plan A or Plan B Linux Adoption Strategies by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 02:54 · Score: 0

Sun took Plan C, which is like Plan B, except that actually moving to Plan A, you repeatedly announce that you're embracing Linux, but continue to really follow Plan B.
Re:Plan A or Plan B Linux Adoption Strategies by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 02:54 · Score: 1, Funny

Plan C: ???? Plan D: Profit

SCO by goombah99 · 2003-12-01 02:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

this is exactly the sort of thing that the SCO debacle is messing up. Wind river nust clearly think twice what would happen if they made the leap to linux and next year there was a judegement which gave SCO the advantage. Perhaps it would be better to stay with windows a year longer and see what happens, the reasoning might go.

--
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Re:SCO by arendjr · 2003-12-01 03:19 · Score: 1

(...) what would happen if they made the leap to linux and next year there was a judegement which gave SCO the advantage.

That's quite a big if you got there...
Re:SCO by PurpleWizard · 2003-12-01 03:29 · Score: 1

"stay with Windows"?
Do you mean as a development host platform?
Re:SCO by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 04:11 · Score: 0

No he means that ingeneral all companies must do the double think regardless of their current non-linux platform
Re:SCO by a.ameri · 2003-12-01 05:17 · Score: 2, Informative

You certainly don't have any clue about what you are talking about? "Staying with Windows"? What do you mean staying with windows? Wind River is/was a traditional Unix and BSD player. They bought BSDI a couple of years ago for god's sake. Now it seems they are moving to Linux. What do you mean by staying with Windows? No company in it's right mind, is using Windows in the embeded systems (in the kind of systems that Wind River produces). Also of note (though off topic), according to statistics, no one is delaying their Linux plans because of SCO.

--
-- /* Those who don't underestand Unix, are condemned to reinvent it poorly */
Re:SCO by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 14:22 · Score: 0

Wind river nust clearly think twice what would happen if they made the leap to linux and next year there was a judegement which gave SCO the advantage.
A judgement next year? We'll be lucky if the trial starts next year.

Not a surprise by RoboOp · 2003-12-01 02:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

Many of their major customers (including ultraconservative telecoms) have already been doing development in Linux for sometime. Like any good businessman, they are going where the customers are. But is that where the money is? They are trying to sell a product in a market where services are the cash cow.

--
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"

Re:Not a surprise by PurpleWizard · 2003-12-01 03:32 · Score: 1

"doing development in Linux"
Do you mean on Linux (hosting tools) or for Linux (as target)?
Re:Not a surprise by pyros · 2003-12-01 04:27 · Score: 2, Informative

both. Embedded Linux is an attractive host OS, and if that's the target platform, why not develop on a Linux box too?
Re:Not a surprise by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 15:25 · Score: 0

Because many embedded systems don't have enough primary storage for GCC, VI, source code, and a ton of temporary object files ;-) Think microwave ovens, cell phones, or an internet appliance like the linksys wireless router. Very little RAM and no secondary storage means a) update b) compile c) download d) test and e) repeat.
Re:Not a surprise by RoboOp · 2003-12-02 02:22 · Score: 1

Do you mean on Linux (hosting tools) or for Linux (as target)?
The latter, driving the former.

--
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"

Me wonders... by clifgriffin · 2003-12-01 02:46 · Score: 1

...shether they will run awry with the restrictive nature of the GPL.

Unless they want to provide their source code for all, their migration to Open Source may stop just short of Linux.

Clif

--
clifgriffin > blog

Re:Me wonders... by clifgriffin · 2003-12-01 02:58 · Score: 1

Somehow "whether" became "shether".

Mucho apologies.

--
clifgriffin > blog
Re:Me wonders... by Andy_R · 2003-12-01 02:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Actually, I would have thought it's considerably less of an drawback to embedded system manufacturers, since you can't often use the software outside the specific embedded hardware environment it's intended for, and therefore the hardware itself practically acts as a 'dongle' for the software.

The only change for them in going GPL might be to switch from a per-unit sales model to an outright-buy one to prevent their customers from getting their
GPL source re-compiled elsewhere after the first box is delivered.

--
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Re:Me wonders... by clifgriffin · 2003-12-01 03:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

Linksys has been in a lot of heat over their use of Linux but without distributing the complete source code.

In cases like these, the GPL is a hindrance...and it is easy to see why. They don't want everyone with a computer, an idea, and the appropriate compiler to be able to release their own ROM updates for their devices.

For many of these companies, the GPL is in the way of their adoption of Open Source solutions....which seems self defeating for the OS movement.

--
clifgriffin > blog
Re:Me wonders... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 04:20 · Score: 0

In cases like these, the GPL is a hindrance...and it is easy to see why. They don't want everyone with a computer, an idea, and the appropriate compiler to be able to release their own ROM updates for their devices.

For many of these companies, the GPL is in the way of their adoption of Open Source solutions....which seems self defeating for the OS movement.

You seem to be completely missing the point. The point of Free Software is not to get adopted by everybody, the point is exactly that if I have a linksys device and a computer, I should be able to produce my own ROM updates if I want to make it work in a way that linksys hadn't anticipated.

That's the whole point.
Re:Me wonders... by cens0r · 2003-12-01 06:53 · Score: 1

But when Joe Sixpack downloads a new ROM for his router and breaks the damn thing he's going to complain to Linksys not the person who wrote the ROM. Linksys rightly shouldn't provide support for using unsupported software on their product, but the user isn't going to care, he's going to blame them.

--
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Despite the name by G3ckoG33k · 2003-12-01 02:49 · Score: 1

lets hope this is not just Wind in sales...

Re:Despite the name by pyros · 2003-12-01 04:56 · Score: 1

dust .... wind ....dude
Re:Despite the name by HiThere · 2003-12-01 07:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Considering their history, I rather hope that this *IS* just PR work. I'd just as soon that they stayed completely away from any system I plan to acutally use.

Of course, sometimes companies change. But don't believe it just because they say it, don't believe it until AFTER they have proven it.

And even then... IBM has been a good friend recently. But I still keep a wary eye on them, in memory of things past.

Also, consider: Without Sun, OpenOffice.org wouldn't exist. We owe Sun a tremendous debt. But this same Sun appearantly spent quite a large sum of money recently on SCO. While continuing to support OpenOffice.org. If you look at any one action, the motives seem plain, but if you look at several, things get confusing. Because companies don't have a single personality running things, and frequently don't have a unified policy (except when they coerce themselves into presenting one for the sake of appearances).

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

Slackware by epcraig · 2003-12-01 02:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

Until Wind River is endorsed by Patrick Volkerding, their good intentions will be for naught in Slackware quarters.

Slackware had some very insecure months after Wind River took over Walnut Creek and cut Slackware loose.

--
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001

Re:Slackware by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 03:40 · Score: 1, Interesting

Oh yeah Wind River, the company the pissed on Slackware. The same Slackware I use everywhere, and specifically used to create an embedded system in a very expensive military box.

Oh, right, screw you Wind River.

JoeR
Got Slack?
Re:Slackware by smed · 2003-12-01 03:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

oh...yeah. After the way Wind River strung Patrick & Co. along for nearly a year before cutting them loose, seriously stalling his meticulous development efforts, I can't possibly support anything this company puts its grubby little hands into.
Screw them.
I doubt this effort is going to improve their rapport in the Linux community anyway. Imagine...taking one of the finest and most stable Linux distros avail and tossing them out on their asses to fend for themselves...and then deciding 2 years later that it might have been a mistake.
Even if Patrick sprinkled this with Holy Water.....I'd never feel comfortable doing business with such short-sightedness.
Again...screw them.
Re:Slackware by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 04:52 · Score: 0

As a recently converted Slackware fan, I was not aware of WindRiver's 'tude and dissing of PV. I dislike WindRiver for other reasons, but if you have a link to tell the Slackware story alluded to, please post it.
Re:Slackware by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 06:14 · Score: 2, Informative

Search Google.

See Also here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/arc hive/5/ 2001/04/4/1991

and here:
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/articl e.php/7 34561

And so you see, from just these 2 articles, that WR really just wanted BSD, because well, the BSD license lets them continue the properietary licensed and royalty generatig scheme they are used to.

Fortunately for us, they did not see that Slackware is genuinely useful for creating embedded systems. Mine (see earlier) runs on a x386 with 12Mb flash and 8Mb ram. We have 2 proprietary apps running on a 2.4.18 kernel along with a large gnu support set inc, ash, snmp, telent, ftp, httpd, and lots of custom scripts.

HAHA, and NO royalties to Wind River!!!

JoeR

I love Eclipse by niall111 · 2003-12-01 02:52 · Score: 4, Interesting

been using it for a year now for our Java development on an AT&T contract. Pretty sweet IDE compared to my years of using visual studio. They like not having to buy visual studio for me now as well.

Re:I love Eclipse by grub · 2003-12-01 02:59 · Score: 2, Funny

Pretty sweet IDE compared to my years of using visual studio

I like SCSI compared to my years of using Code Warrior. Oh wait, sorry...

--
Trolling is a art,
Re:I love Eclipse by molarmass192 · 2003-12-01 03:11 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm confused, you're doing Java development and they were considering buying Visual Studio? Isn't that a little like trying to mix oil and water? Does the new VS.NET even support Java, I thought it only supported J#, the MS Java bastard step-child?

--

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Re:I love Eclipse by Not+The+Real+Me · 2003-12-01 12:37 · Score: 1

You can use VS5/6 to write Java code. The key point to remember is M$ stops at v1.1. What you do is use VS as the syntax checker/editor but you save your files on a Unix/Linux box and you use the Java compiler of your choice v1.3 or v1.4 on the Linux/Unix box to compile and create your class files, a Makefile will take care of this.

I use VS to edit c/c++ and Java code but all of the code is compiled on Unix/Linux boxes.

GPL is causing Wind River wariness of Linux? by Cryofan · 2003-12-01 02:57 · Score: 4, Interesting

THis article highlights another example of the GPL causing corporate wariness of Linux:

In this article by Mike Downing of Integrated Communications Design, Wind River's Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Curt Schacker, expresses his company's concerns about the viability of using GPL-based software (like Linux) in embedded applications. "More customers are telling us that they see interesting aspects to Linux . . . but we're seeing a growing problem due to the growing uncertainty of using GPL-based code in embedded development," says Wind Rivers's Schaker according to Downing.

What are the options for revising the GPL, if any?

--
eat shiat and bark at the moon

Re:GPL is causing Wind River wariness of Linux? by FatRatBastard · 2003-12-01 03:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

What are the options for revising the GPL, if any?

Why revise it? Its not like its the only software license in the world, or for that matter the only "open" license. If Wind River doesn't like the GPL it can always use BSDi (which it owns) or anything else under the BSD license. Problem solved.
Re:GPL is causing Wind River wariness of Linux? by Grizzlysmit · 2003-12-01 04:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

In this article by Mike Downing of Integrated Communications Design, Wind River's Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Curt Schacker, expresses his company's concerns about the viability of using GPL-based software (like Linux) in embedded applications. "More customers are telling us that they see interesting aspects to Linux . . . but we're seeing a growing problem due to the growing uncertainty of using GPL-based code in embedded development," says Wind Rivers's Schaker according to Downing.
What are the options for revising the GPL, if any?
Ah yes, so we should revise it so it's easier to steal, like BSD??, face it there is no problem with GPL unless you want to distribute your own mods without GPL'ing the source, as soon as a company says this, you know their intensions arn't honest. If they were truely going open source the GPL wouldn't bother them.
This is why for my money, GPL and LGPL are the only sane licences, I'd never use BSD or any of those gutless ones, if I give something, it's gunna stay given.

--
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that :-D
Francis Smit
Re:GPL is causing Wind River wariness of Linux? by geomon · 2003-12-01 06:19 · Score: 1

"More customers are telling us that they see interesting aspects to Linux . . . but we're seeing a growing problem due to the growing uncertainty of using GPL-based code in embedded development," says Wind Rivers's Schaker according to Downing.

Translation:

"More customers are telling us that they see interesting aspects to Linux . . . but we're seeing a growing problem due to the fact that GPL does not let us take other people's ideas, make money off them, close off the source, and then dump the developers without paying them a penny."

Yep, sounds like a huge problem for the GPL.

What are the options for revising the GPL, if any?

What part of getting screwed with out a reacharound do you prefer?

If you change the GPL to make it easy for people to take without giving, then they won't give back.

--
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Re:GPL is causing Wind River wariness of Linux? by HiThere · 2003-12-01 07:11 · Score: 1

Personally, I'm of the opinion that ANY monoculture is dangerous. And this includes a monoculture of licenses. Fortunately there are many. Just off the top of my head:
BSD, GPL, EiffelForum, Artistic, Modified GPL (as used in GNAT), LGPL, MPL, NPL, ... I believe that there are about 15 that have already been approved. Personally, the GPL is my favorite, but it should, perhaps, have a modified version that says "In case the GPL is found invalid, this software may be used under *designated licence* except that the parties filing the suit shall have no rights whatsoever to use any code covered by this license in any way."

I'm not quite sure what the designated license should be, however. Something suitably, but not excessively, restrictive, but which allows for the FSF to relicense the code under a redesigned (to fix whatever legal flaw was discovered) GPL.

I am a bit concerned with the exclusion term. Perhaps it should be modified to include those who made voluntary financial contributions to the prosecution of the suit, but who aren't directly connected.

Other than that, I see no flaw with the GPL.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:GPL is causing Wind River wariness of Linux? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 15:39 · Score: 0

If the GPL was found to be invalid wouldn't the end user in fact have *no* rights to use the software unless explicitly granted by the copyright holder?

Who'd of thought it would come to this? by theoldmoose · 2003-12-01 03:00 · Score: 5, Informative

As a recipient of one of the local Wind River's sales office's highly anti-Linux sales pitches, my boss, who is generally neutral about such things, was particularly put off by the condescending attitude on the part of the sales folks and the white paper they were circulating. The effect was that they were taking us as a bunch of uneducated fools, because we might be considering using Linux in an upcoming embedded project.

In fact, the project was one that had been 'orphaned' by Wind River, because they had bought out ISI, and 'deep-sixed' PSOS (thanks, guys). Faced with having to re-write all the OS interfaces in the code to upgrade to faster processors, we figured it would be just about as much trouble to move to a Linux-based system, and that would 'future-proof' us against further corporate shenanigans.

I had used VxWorks in the past on other projects, and had achieved a nice working relationship with the local Wind River sales and engineering support folks. Wind River's behavior over the last few years, though, has pretty much destroyed that.

Wind River may be trying to jump on the band wagon now, but it may already be too late. Folks like me have long memories.

Re:Who'd of thought it would come to this? by wowbagger · 2003-12-01 03:23 · Score: 1, Redundant

Yeah, they tried this crap on us - "If you use Linux, you will have to GPL all your code!"

We shot them down in flames on that one.

--
www.eFax.com are spammers

Re:Like Anyone Should Be Suprised? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 03:05 · Score: 0

Yeah, and I remember back 4-5 years ago pointing out the copious shortcomings of Linux for the desktop and people thought "yeah, whatever, see you in a couple of years..."

Still waiting.

not TOO suprising by afidel · 2003-12-01 03:15 · Score: 2, Informative

Considering that GCC and the GNU toolchain has been used for much of their crossplatform development kit for a while now.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.

All I know about Wind River is... by HarveyBirdman · 2003-12-01 03:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

...that we use VxWorks extensively around where I work, and everytime we need some minor addition to an embedded application, it's like we asked the software engineers to sacrifice their own mothers to some dark Old God. And it isn't even like it's *real* embedded applications where it's all solid state and firmware and PROMs. This is stuff like VXI Slot 0 PCs with hard drives and monitor/mouse/keyboard ports.

I never knew what "ashen faced" was until I asked if I could add a couple bits to a status packet (and this was still in the design phase when things are supposed to be fluid).

--
--- Ban humanity.

Re:All I know about Wind River is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 08:05 · Score: 0

That almost certainly has less to do with VxWorks than it does with poor system design.
Re:All I know about Wind River is... by HarveyBirdman · 2003-12-01 10:27 · Score: 1

You know... knowing our software engineers... I think I agree with you. ;-)
To be fair, though, I think it has something to do with category 5 software assurance where they check every line of code with a magnifying glass. Twice. And then they check again. Three times.

--
--- Ban humanity.
Re:All I know about Wind River is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 15:52 · Score: 0

Or, in the case of your shitty DHCP client library, a) submit nonfunctional garbage b) forge SA report c) forge 2 more SA reports d) Forge 3 more times then release.

Wind River and open source by molnarcs · 2003-12-01 03:16 · Score: 4, Informative

This is not their first brush with open source. After acquiring BSDi, they encouraged BSD/OS users to move to FreeBSD, than dropped support entirely (or rather. they transferred FreeBSD sponsorship to FreeBSD MALL). Anyway, the point is, that back then, when this announcement was made, I saw the usual argument of BSD licence being more "liberal" than GPL. It seems that this might not be the case after all.

I don't want to bash BSD - in fact I use it both as a desktop and on a server, and I love it. I like it better than linux, while I like the licence of Linux better than BSD. The moment a company adopts a software under the BSD licence, it has too choices. It can keep it open source (in which case it would use it almost as if it were GPL) or make it closed source (relinquishing the advantages of the Open Source development model). I believe the two balance each other out, but the BSD licence makes code exchange between linux development and BSD development (both excellent and cutting edge softwares) a one way road, which is not a good thing in the long run imho.

Anyhow, this news confirms that the favorite claims of BSD users, that is to say, the BSD licence is more corporate friendly, is not necessarily true. Wind River was known to be a BSD company (they still sell BSDi 5.0) but they are on the way of becoming a linux company (well, not a linux company per se, but a company that supports - and favors - linux instead of BSD, despite the licence.) It seems that the embedded BSD project (link) is not quite flourishing.

Re:Wind River and open source by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 06:10 · Score: 0

This is not their first brush with open source. After acquiring BSDi, they encouraged BSD/OS users to move to FreeBSD, than dropped support entirely (or rather. they transferred FreeBSD sponsorship to FreeBSD MALL). Anyway, the point is, that back then, when this announcement [slashdot.org] was made, I saw the usual argument of BSD licence being more "liberal" than GPL. It seems that this might not be the case after all.

for sure
and the shame atitude they have not releasing and passing the FREEBSD trademark to freebsdfoundation hands

for freebsd folks its like talking to a wall, no answers, no dont cares, no nothing. Windriver doesnt pass the brand because of their wAllnut Creek/BSDi buy, and that puts a treat and fear like the recent SCO SCANDAL

FreeBSD is a registered trademark of Wind River Systems, Inc. This is expected to change soon.

that soon is there for more than 2 years!

BTW windRIVER works for DEfense and Military many of their RTOS are used on teleguided missels and on weapons of mass "distraction"
no one with bloody hands can join the penguin wagon since this is a free OS for free minds. Like FREEBSD is either.

If they join so, they should show how they changed their policy and thinking about OSS comunity! not by words or press releases but by actions!

What the f? by A+nonymous+Coward · 2003-12-01 03:24 · Score: 1

What makes you think the GPL needs revising? What kind of control freak are you to even think of revising a license used by millions of people? Why don't you just go invent your own license?

Keerist, the gall of some people ... if you don't like something, fine, do your own, but to think of changing other people's choice because you don't like it .... keerist in a bucket

--
Infuriate left and right

Re:What the f? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 03:34 · Score: 0

I agree with your sentiment but it would carry so much more authority if you changed your style:-)

Windriver Sales Tactics by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 03:25 · Score: 4, Interesting

I too read Windriver's whitepaper on embedded Linux and saw it as a ploy to downplay the feasibility of using Linux as a RTOS.

I wouldn't get too excited about anything Windriver does concerning Linux. I recently finished a project utilizing VxWorks 5.5. At every turn we were informed that we didn't currently own the package we needed to do some functionality. Of course the new package would be another $xxxx.xx or more per developer (Often plus royalty). I'm not talking about off the wall support either. Things like write protecting the program text require an additional purchase to be supported.

I'm not saying that Windriver's products are bad. In fact, I'm a fan of VxWorks in comparison to some of their competitors. I'm cautious because Windriver is a wolf in sheep's clothing. (Think Micro$oft of the RTOS world.)

Business Friendly License by dmaxwell · 2003-12-01 03:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

The BSD license may be for friendly for companies that want to use FOSS but it usually isn't for companies that participate in FOSS. What's business friendly about a competitor taking your stuff, adding secret sauce to it, and then freezing you out of a market you may have created?

Re:Business Friendly License by Ded+Bob · 2003-12-01 05:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

That is incorrect. I would like to point out IBM HTTP Server as an example of a project that a company (IBM) participates with that has a BSD/MIT style license.

What's business friendly about a competitor taking your stuff, adding secret sauce to it, and then freezing you out of a market you may have created?

That is why it is usually one company that is heavily involved with any particular GPL project. As they hold the copyright, they can still release proprietary releases (StarOffice). Any other company that comes along would have great difficulty (usually impossible) in doing the same. "What's business friendly" about that?

Ignoring the license issue, Wind River has not exactly been kind to either the Linux (Slackware) or FreeBSD camps. It is a shame, but I would not trust them.
Re:Business Friendly License by edhall · 2003-12-02 20:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is pure FUD. No one can make BSD code proprietary. Yes, they can add their own stuff to it, and keep their version to themselves. But the origial code is as free as it ever was. The only way for a competitor to "freeze you out" is for them to enhance the codebase to such an extent that you can't do so yourself. And at that point I think there might be a credible argument that the creator of those enhancements deserves to profit from them if they wish. You may argue differently -- I've no problem with folks who want to exclude this option, or with the GPL itself. But the fact remains, BSD-licensed code remains free no matter what someone makes out of it, contrary to what some people claim.

-Ed

MOD PARENT UP !! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 03:40 · Score: 0

I wish I had mod points for you. Actually BSD license is business friendly if by business you mean "bastardisation" and "selfishness". I really cant understand how is it even called "freedom" to take the code which was contributed by people graciously and make it proprietory in a selfish manner. Dont get me wrong, I have utmost respect for BSDs. They are wonferful free softwares. But the license really sucks as it allows these selfish bastards to take away the code without returning anything.

Wind River == WIN DRIVER by aphor · 2003-12-01 04:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Conspiracy theorists go nuts!

Seriously, who pays this company for what and why should they even care? They bought Walnut Creek CDROM when the consumer Internet connections got fast enough for people to stop buying CDROMs full of free software. Why? Walnut Creek hosted a big FTP server and had some CDROM mastering coing on. Did Wind River need distribution for their products to get them out to a wider audience? Why is there both BSDMall.com and FreeBSDMall.com?

In this day and age you should know to understand a business by the needs it fills and whose cash is represented in sales. Wind River is a mystery. Proceed with caution.

--
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...

Keep the River out of Linux! by frostfreek · 2003-12-01 04:12 · Score: 4, Informative

My experiences with Wind River have all centered around VxWorks. In their own words, a 'POSIX-like' OS. Effectively, they support POSIX calls, but with some minor variations of functionality or parameters that totally mess you up. For example, a PIPE. How can you screw up a pipe? They managed to do it... and rather well, too.
The VxWorks system has never had good memory protection. I think every CPU ever made for ten years now has had an MMU on board... Geez. And yet, every task running has full Read/Write access to every other task's memory, including the OS's memory.

I could go on, but if any contributions are of this sort of quality, then no thanks.

Re:Keep the River out of Linux! by tius · 2003-12-01 05:05 · Score: 1

Even more frightful, I've seen embedded "designs" that actually made use of one task diddling in another tasks memory! It's so wonderful when companies are willing to hire anyone as an embedded designer...it's like 'doze, no?!?
Re:Keep the River out of Linux! by hcuar · 2003-12-01 06:09 · Score: 1

Actually... There is an MMU package that you can purchase for VxWorks 5.5 that supports memory protection. Oh, by the way... It's not standard (It costs a pretty penny)! :)

As to the shared memory for each task... You can actually create private task evironments using VX_PRIVATE_ENV as an option for taskSpawn. Just remember that any device drivers initialized with handles in a task will no longer be available once that task shuts down! ;-)
Re:Keep the River out of Linux! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 16:08 · Score: 0

The VxWorks system has never had good memory protection.
Virtual memory is for pussies.
Tasks by design should not corrupt other's memory. If a designer can't handle that, they absolutely shouldn't be designing realtime embedded systems and should go back to writing cute java applets for the intarweb.

Too little...Too late... by krbvroc1 · 2003-12-01 04:24 · Score: 1

For those of you who have done embedded development with Wind River OS products (vxWorks) in the past, this looks like too little, too late.

Not only did they fight the open source movement for some time, but now that they are hurting they look to embrace it. Those of you who have tried to work with Wind River tech support to solve problems with device drivers and software issues have probably experienced the frustration and head banging of trying to get results. The lack of support, secretive nature of the internals of their products, and lack of affordable source code (if you shell out a lot of money >$100,000? you could get source code) is what caused me to switch to linux for embedded development. Linux is not perfect, but when I'm trying to deliver a product and a device driver is crashing, I can delve into the source code and get some insights or add some debug statements.

Based on this track record of poor support, I doubt they can develop and support linux development tools that really add value.

Wind River? Pfft. Eclipse?! Double pfft. by Cthefuture · 2003-12-01 04:25 · Score: 0, Informative

At first I was thinking "Hmmm, why in the hell would they choose Eclipse?". I mean Eclispe is OK but its written in, get this, Java. Blech. It feels much like NetBeans. That is, slow, bloated, and generally funky dispite some nice features. Then after reading most of the comments so far I understand why.

Wind River seems to be known for playing stupid games. I've heard they drop support for products as quickly as they create them. There are some strange claims (check SCO references to Wind River). They're coporate road map must be all over the place. In my opinion that makes them unstable and untrustworthy. I wouldn't trust them to choose a proper IDE (hence Eclipse).

Java, yeah right. Can you tell I've been burned? And I've been using Java since the pre-1.0 days.

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The ratio of people to cake is too big

The GPL is good as it is by DVega · 2003-12-01 04:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

The GPL was designed to promote Free Software. The idea embodied in this licence, is that once a piece of code is put under the GPL, this code and any descendat of it will be free forever.

The GPL is not intended to promote bussiness or propietary software. If that is your intention you need another license.

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MOD THE CHILD UP!

wither TRON? by spoonyfork · 2003-12-01 04:38 · Score: 1

I thought TRON was the embedded shiznit. What gives?

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Speak truth to power.

And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 04:50 · Score: 0

their next release of VxWorks has memory protection, and run on Linux, and use GCC. All the things you say they don't do. Maybe just maybe the company has a clue.

Re:And yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 06:28 · Score: 0

their next release of VxWorks has memory protection, and run on Linux, and use GCC. All the things you say they don't do.

So a version of their software that doesn't exist, does all the things thay he said their actual in existence software doesn't do? You'd be amazed how often that's true, welcome to the computer industry.

Worlds #1! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 05:26 · Score: 0

I'm so glad the story posts that this is the #1 embedded software company. I mean, if this was #2 - I wouldnt have read this story at all. Whew!

Yes, SCO + WRS == true love affair by eddy · 2003-12-01 05:32 · Score: 2, Informative

Yep. Asked about the 'silent majority' that, according the the paranoid delusions of Mc-soon-to-be-Prison-Bride WindRiver is with SCO with concern to the GPL:

"[...] Anybody who owns an operating system that thinks it shouldn't be for free, uh, would naturally fall on this side of the table that SCO is on. So it is not just Microsoft, it is Wind River Systems, it's Sun Microsystems, essentially anybody who thinks that their valuable intellectual property in an operating system should have a price tag on it naturally lines up with SCO on this."

SCO Teleconference, transcript here.

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Belief is the currency of delusion.

Re:Yes, SCO + WRS == true love affair by HiThere · 2003-12-01 06:59 · Score: 1

OK. He thought that he was being reasonable that time. After all, everyone *must* want to smash dangerous competition...

Actually, he probably is, sort of, right. But most people seem to believe that "fair" competition should be met honorably. And it's often possible to turn things into a win for most, or all, parties. Customers, somehow, often aren't considered as part of the relevant parties. But I count them that way. Of course, I don't own a business...

And there is substantial evidence that SCO had reason to count Sun among their supporters. The evidence seems to indicate that they *did* get substantial support from Sun.

OTOH, isn't Wind River the company that bought (or other wise acquired) BSDi from Walnut Creek? And then decided not to support it? (At least not publically.) One might want to be a bit careful about the meanings that one attributes to their actions.

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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Yes, SCO + WRS == true love affair by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 07:17 · Score: 0

They are also the ones who bought out pSOS and then abandoned it. I'm just hoping they'll come out with a painless way to migrate straight from pSOS to RTLinux or some variant ;)

Hey Eclipsecon is supporting us with banner ads... by istartedi · 2003-12-01 06:00 · Score: 1

somwhere in a smoke-filled room at Slashdot headquarters... Eclipse is buying banners... let's be sure to mention Eclipse in some stories.

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For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?

buyout bait? Or poison pill? by skidrash · 2003-12-01 06:37 · Score: 1

If MS does not get the results it wants out of WinCe what would be the easiest way for MS to gain embedded market share?

Buy out Wind River and migrate WR's customer base to WinCE.

But if WR makes it much easier for their customers to move to Linux, and many of them do, Linux will have beaten MS handily in 2 areas (servers and embedded).

2 reasons for MS to buy WR - increase their own market share and deny Linux that market share.

Haven't they realized yet? by famazza · 2003-12-01 07:25 · Score: 1

Haven't they realized yet, the problem that is distribute Free Software embedded systems?

It really sux, you must provide a way to upgrade firmware, so you need to provide an interface. That's not easy.

To tell the truth I don't know exactly what is needed to be in conformity to GPL, but I'll tell you a thing, allow firmware upgrades in certain devices is not easy, and in many cases will increase product price.

Imagine yourself upgrading your FreeSoftware-CarStereo.

I hope they find easy ways to do such a thing.

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I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?

Wind River wanted $15,000 for their developer kit by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 07:51 · Score: 0

We were going to do a job for a customer using VxWorks. When Wind River tried to charge us $15,000 for their developer kit we convinced our customer to migrate to Embedded Linux for free! Who knows what kind of ridiculous pricing Wind River is going to put on their Linux offerings?

We Suck Less by derfel · 2003-12-01 08:49 · Score: 1

In a sales meeting with the WindRiver folks, we were discussing our options for a Realtime OS on an upcoming project. We laid out some of the problems we'd had with them in the past and their response was "we suck, but we suck less than the other guys." We got a kick out of this after they left.

uh by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 12:16 · Score: 0

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices reports that Wind River, the world's #1 embedded software company

anonymous? or press release?

Wrong! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-01 13:10 · Score: 0

They bought Walnut Creek CDROM when the consumer Internet connections got fast enough for people to stop buying CDROMs full of free software. Why? Walnut Creek hosted a big FTP server and had some CDROM mastering coing on.

Nonsense. By the time BSDi came in at Walnut Creek, the FTP server (ftp.cdrom.com) and the cdrom.com domain had already been sold to Digital River. Walnut Creek hosted ftp.freesoftware.com for a while after that, but that site was never as reliable and wasn't part of the package with Wind River. They wanted Walnut Creek CDROM because they had a high concentration of FreeBSD developers, and they hoped most of them would come over to Wind River. Which they did... for a few days. Then they mostly left for Apple.

I don't think you understand the GPL... by cbreaker · 2003-12-03 03:31 · Score: 1

The GPL protects Linux, and us, and all the thousands of developers.

Linux, the kernel and most of the components to make up a complete OS, are essentially free software, for us to use, imporove on, build on. People spent a lot of hard hours on this software.

So tell me, why should we "revise" the GPL and allow corporations to take Linux, label it something else, and sell back to people, closed source? They didn't write Linux, they didn't pay for it, so they shouldn't be able to do this.

If a company wants to use Linux, they must accept the fact that they are getting a WHOLE LOT of really great software to use, free of charge. If they aren't happy with the GPL, then fine; write your own operating system..

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- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -

Why is Eclipse anything to do with Linux? by gfim · 2003-12-07 17:21 · Score: 1

How does joining the Eclipse Consortium have anything to do with "moving towards Linux"? Eclipse runs under lots of operating systems.

Graham

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Graham

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Wind River Moving Towards Linux

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