Thursday, 22 February 2007

Wind River Acquires RTLinux from FSMLabs

Wind River, a provider of Device Software Optimisation (DSO), has acquired the intellectual property including patents, copyrights, trademarks and associated product rights for RTLinux, the software industry's commercially-available, patented, hard real-time Linux technology developed by Finite State Machine Labs, (FSMLabs). As a result of this purchase agreement, Wind River will offer Linux customers hard real-time functionality integrated with its, Linux-based device software platforms. Hard real-time functionality will extend the viability of Linux to a broader set of their device development projects that requires mission-critical performance, the company said in a statement.

RTLinux technology includes a hard real-time executive that coexists with the standard Linux kernel. Together, they combine the hard real-time capabilities necessary for performance responsiveness with the general-purpose capabilities of the Linux operating system for file system management, networking and other operating system functions, the company said.

Once available, the combination of RTLinux technology and Wind River's Linux device software platforms will provide device manufacturers with mature, proven technology for developing next-generation Linux-based applications that require hard real-time functionality. By offering RTLinux technology integrated with Wind River Platform for Consumer Devices, Linux Edition, Wind River will deliver hard real-time solutions such as feature phone or digital imaging applications with high volume streaming media requirements as well as automotive applications such as vehicle crash avoidance. RTLinux integrated with Wind River Platform for Network Equipment, Linux Edition will enable a new level of high performance for Linux-based device applications with ultra-high packet traffic such as routing that require hard real-time and route thousand of IP packets, as per a statement issued by the company.