chaging stories in the vxworks front (Score 1)

a brief history of the quest for the RTOS dominance: * Wind River incorprated 1981 and produces a set of libraries that will become vxWorks. initially vxworks runs on top of other kernels, such as pSOS and VRTX RTOS kernels. in order to run vxWorks effectively, you had to also buy pSOS or VRTX kernels. * 1989: vxWorks finally has its own kernel, called WIND. pSOS and VRTX kernels no longer supported by vxWorks. this creates some problems with existing users. * 1991: pSOS creator Al Chao sells the company to ISI * 1995: VRTX is sold to Microtec, then later to mentor graphics * 1999: VRTX creator Jim Ready starts a company that sells linux to embedded realtime market, called Montavista. the product is called hard hat linux. * March 3, 2000: Wind River makes it official that pSOS will cease to exist after merger (take-over) with ISI. * April 5, 2001: Wind River: "... would want to emphasize that it's absolutely not Wind River's intention to contribute or, frankly, utilize code that's licensed under the GPL. We still have very strong opinions with regard to the GPL." Quotes are from this article.. * April 6, 2001: Wind River buys BSD/OS and hires BSDI and FreeBSD team members. Reference article here. BSD vs GPL licensing issues are at the core of the rationale behind the BSD move. Wind River: "... customers are afraid of GPL." * Dec, 2003: Wind River joins OSDL and embraces linux. * Feb, 2004: Wind River partners with Red Hat, to compete against Hard Hat. My prediction: the Realtime and embedded operating systems market will continue in several main areas: * hand-held and consumer electronics type applications : this is where many different OS vendors will compete, including Microsoft Windows CE, VxWorks, and various forms of Linux and other proprietary RTOS. * scientific and research community : traditionally vxWorks, but moving rapidly to almost completely Linux * military ( a big market for commercial RTOS vendors ) : vxWorks will dominate. some of the weapons vxWorks is used inside currently are: Military Aircraft: * C130AMP * Boeing 767 Tanker * EA-6B Prowler * E-2C Hawkeye Fighter Aircraft: * F22 Raptor * F18 Fighter Military Helicopters: * V-22 Transporter * Lockheed Martin AN/APR-48A * Superpuma EC225/725 Cruise Missiles: * Trident Missile Fire Control * Raytheon Tomahawk * Boeing AGM-84 Harpoon * Boeing AGM-86B * Raytheon Standard SM-2 * Raytheon AMRAAM Phase 3