Experiences with FreeRTOS?

I've never used it because of the license which requires you to provide the freeRTOS source code to your customers.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I will establish
                                  at               the first SHOPPING MALL in

So? Meanwhile it has cost you nothing, and you are not providing anything they can't get for themselves. I wouldn't buy anything that didn't come with source. The license is another matter.

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Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
   Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.

There are two licenses available. One is a straight commercial license, like any other. Everything is closed source. The other is a modified GPL license. The modification means you can keep your application code (the code that uses FreeRTOS.org through the API) closed source, but any modifications made to the kernel itself need be open sourced. You can just send the modifications back to me.

You are not required to automatically provide the FreeRTOS.org source code to your customers. You are required to offer to provide it should they want it. All versions are freely available for download. If this is not acceptable to your app you can switch to a commercial license at any time.

Regards, Richard.

• formatting link

• formatting link
  Real time kernel for safety related systems.

[...]

[ ] is simply a redirect to [ ].

On [

] "click here if your browser does not support frames" does not actually turn off the frames. Quite annoying. (tested on IE, FireFox and Opera.)

A workaround for the knowlegable is to go to [

] or [ ] instead of [ ], but the site designers should give the ordinary user a choice as to whether to use frames.

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Guy Macon

or

I'm *!&$ at html. The site is written using Doxygen.

I used browser to see what the site looks like using all different browsers. None had a problem with frames so I have not seen any issues. The site will also not work well if you don't use javascript, but from the site stats it looks like less than 0.2% of visitors have javascript off.

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Regards,
Richard.

Prior to the spell checker this said: "I used BrowserCam to see what the site looks like using all different browsers."

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Regards,
Richard.

The license cost me nothing. Setting up a procedure for handling requests for source code and then handling those requests does cost something.

Your mobile phone came with source? Your car came with source? Your microwave? Your computer keyboard?

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I need to discuss
                                  at               BUY-BACK PROVISIONS

Greetings,

We are using it for a new product on the ARM platform, where it performs flawlessly. IMHO it is very easy to setup and configure and it is very portable. To use compiler A instead of compiler B is a matter of changing a very small number of files. The footprint is also quite small. I took a "proof of concept" sample program where 4 tasks was blinking 4 LED at different speed. Not a really usefull app but the size of it was only 3.7K. Nice.

I'll recommend it anytime...

/RaceMouse

Guy Fawkes wrote:

My interpretation of the license is as follows...

While the license requires you to provide the FreeRTOS sources (and changes you have made to the RTOS sources) you don't have to provide sources for your "application" (i.e. your proprietary code running on top of the RTOS). The license alows you to simply provide a link to a download for the sources and does not require distribution of media.

Personally, I don't see how the license could be any freindlier to adopters while also providing the benefits of open source.

TC

I'm using it now for the first time also on ARM. I'd agree with the comments made in this post.

TC

Right.

Ah ha! I somehow missed that provision.

If all I'm required to do is provide a download URL in the manual, then that's not a problem. I was under the impression that you had to actually physically distribute source code upon request as is required by the GPL.

If it indeed does not require physical distribution of the source code, then I agree.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  YOW!! Up ahead! It's
                                  at               a DONUT HUT!!

What good is it to provide the source to the RTOS if the user can not relink your application against his modified version of the RTOS?

I prefer a BSD-style license, much less headache.

That's up to the user, and is not your concern. Maybe he doesn't like your work and will write his own application.

What headache?

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
   Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.

You can provide an object file which will allow the use to relink. But no gaurantees if the user modifies the RTOS (changes might break the application).

Reasons for not providing the sources to proprietary code is to protect the value-add and to avoid the burden of support from users who modify sources, break things, but claim that they didn't touch the code.

None of this precludes a vendor from providing sources if that is the appropriate model for their business. The point is that the flexibility is there to implement a distribution model that makes sense for the business.

TC

The good for the user is that if they like the GPL'ed part of the code, i.e., the RTOS in this case, they can get the source code and use it. You don't have to provide any way for them to use your code with their version of the RTOS (perhaps you are thinking of code under an unmodified LGPL, where the end user must be able to use a new version of the library with your code). The good for the author of the RTOS is that if you modify and improve the RTOS, then those modifications must be released as source to a wider audience (and hopefully back to the RTOS author). For many embedded systems, that's the useful sharing enforced by GPL variants.

As long as it does not include an "advertising" clause, BSD-style licensing has less obligations. But I don't think the modified GPL in this case is at all onerous - it is certainly far simpler to work with than many commercial licenses.

The "must publish source code" of the GPL is an "advertising" clause.

Hi All,

Sorry to be negative but why is it that when someone asks a simple question for an opinion on a product that the threads seem to head down a path that is irrelevant to the original question.

I for one would love to hear of peoples experiences and thoughts on the FreeRTOS. This would be much more productive and informative than watching some too'ing fro'ing over license agreements.

Thanks PhilW

Because "experiences with a product" includes dealing with its licensing agreement.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  I wonder if I ought
                                  at               to tell them about my

There were a couple of replies that were directly answering the question plus one that was commenting on the fact that one of the links in my sig uses a redirect which really was irrelevant (and uninteresting). As far as license discussions go, you would be amazed how much time this takes up when dealing with some of the larger companies, so this thread is probably a fair reflection.

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Regards,
Richard.