History of RTEMS

[Joel Sherrill]

Angelo Fraietta wrote:
> 
> The timeline is great, however, I was after reasons why RTEMS became open
> source and free to the public.  Why wasn't / isn't  it sold instead of given
> away?

This requires a trip in the way back time machine. :)

Originally, RTEMS was just free for government projects.  The earliest
non-Army user was the Super Conducting Super Collider project (remember
that one?).  The Army sponsors had the insight that there was nothing 
particularly military about RTEMS and that it could benefit from a wider
base of users.  If you look at the timeline, you will notice the slow 
movement to GNU tools as well as submissions from non-Army users.

I think it was a very pragmatic thing.  In the long run, it made RTEMS
more self-sufficient. Given the relatively small number of government 
embedded projects, it would be harder for RTEMS to be self-sufficient.

Somewhere around 1993, www.rtems.army.mil (aka
lancelot.gcs.redstone.army.mil)
was made the distribution site for RTEMS.  Around the 4.0 release,
distribution
moved to oarcorp.com.

I recall serious discussions on licensing.  The GPL and LGPL were not
great at embedded systems but we needed a protective open source
license.
RTEMS had a BSD-ish license for some early releases but the movement
to a GPL+exception was a good thing.  It was painful to continuously
explain a non-standard open source license.

Does that make sense?

> Joel Sherrill wrote:
> 
> > Angelo Fraietta wrote:
> > >
> > > Is there a URL that has the History of how RTEMS came to be?
> >
> > There is not a full history at this point in time.  I
> > did a timeline for this:
> >
> > http://www.estec.esa.nl/CONFANNOUN/00e09/index.html
> >
> > and the presentations (including mine) are at:
> >
> > ftp://ftp.estec.esa.nl/pub/ws/opensource/OpenSourceSeminar.htm
> >
> > I condensed the timeline down to 2 dense slides (5 and 6).
> > This is derived from Army project reports and CVS log. If
> > you think something major in RTEMS is missing, feel free
> > to comment.  I had a dream of a clickable graphic timeline
> > with more information per year but that would have taken
> > too much effort. :)
> >
> > This presentation has other information which might be of
> > use to you.  Please feel free to ask questions and post
> > your presentation. :)
> > > --
> > > Angelo Fraietta
> > >
> > > PO Box 859
> > > Hamilton NSW 2303
> > >
> > > Home Page
> > >
> > > http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~maaaf/
> > >
> > > There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge - that is
> > > CURIOSITY
> > > There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others - that is
> > > VANITY
> > > There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve - that is LOVE
> > >     Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 - 1153)
> >
> > --
> > Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
> > joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
> > Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
> >    Support Available             (256) 722-9985
> 
> --
> Angelo Fraietta
> 
> PO Box 859
> Hamilton NSW 2303
> 
> Home Page
> 
> http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~maaaf/
> 
> There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge - that is
> CURIOSITY
> There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others - that is VANITY
> There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve - that is LOVE
>     Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 - 1153)

-- 
Joel Sherrill, Ph.D.             Director of Research & Development
joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
   Support Available             (256) 722-9985