[ Thanks to LinuxDevices.com for this link.
]
“RL: We are certainly seeing a wide assortment of strategies for
supporting the emerging embedded Linux market, including Linux
variations, “Linux-like” RTOSes, tools, development services, and
support. What’s Lineo’s perspective on this?”
“Sparks: It’s especially fascinating that the proprietary RTOS
vendors are adding Linux to their strategies. We first noticed
LynuxWorks, and now QNX, doing this. We think this increasingly
common migration to Linux by the traditional RTOS companies is in
direct reaction to Lineo’s embedded Linux offering, which we put in
motion last July. But, we think OEMs will prefer our Linux-based
embedded system software products and business model over the
“hybrid OS” solutions offered by companies like LynuxWorks, QNX,
Wind River Systems, and Red Hat.”
“RL: I notice you included Red Hat in the category of companies
offering “hybrid OS” solutions. Could you elaborate on that?”
“Sparks: We include Red Hat in this category even though eCos,
their low-end embedded product, isn’t “proprietary.” It’s open
source, but it’s certainly home grown. But it’s not Linux. What
they’re doing is adding a Linux api on top of eCos, which isn’t
Linux. That’s a “hybrid” strategy. They support Linux for the high
end, and eCos for the low end. Lineo believes Linux is the superior
embedded OS and that Linux is going to be much more appealing to
OEMs than a hybrid solution, where they have to deal with two
different technologies instead of the simplicity of keeping
everything on Linux.”