A new Real-Time Linux (RTL) Collaborative Project has been put together under the umbrella of The Linux Foundation and it looks like a lot of heavy hitters are on board, including Google, IBM, Intel, and quite a few others.
Regular Linux users might not have heard about the real-time kernel and they probably wonder what the heck it is about. Well, a Real-Time Linux kernel has been around for some time, but it hasn’t got the attention that it deserves. This type of technology is developed for devices or hardware that need a much better access to the kernel and which usually depend on speed. This can’t be achieved with a regular kernel, and there are other solutions out there that can do the job.
The fact that the likes of Google or IBM are putting money into this new project shows that they really need to make the Real-Time kernel a much better one. This can only be done through open source, and if anyone can coordinate their efforts, then The Linux Foundation is the place to go.
Real-Time Linux (RTL) Collaborative Project is a major enterprise
A lot of things need to come together for this collaboration to work, but they got started on with the right decision. RTL’s Thomas Gleixner has been working on this branch of the kernel for almost ten years, and he’s now a Linux Foundation Fellow. From this position, he will continue to work on the maintenance of Real-Time Linux.
“The RTL kernel supports the largest range of architectures of any operating system and can leverage Linux device drivers, file systems and more from the mainline kernel. Real-time properties make it possible to control robots, data acquisition systems, manufacturing plants and other time-sensitive instruments and machines from RTL applications. It provides the critical infrastructure for some of the world’s most complex computing systems,” is noted in the announcement from The Linux Foundation.
The RTL Collaborative Project will also push critical code upstream to be reviewed and eventually merged into the mainline Linux kernel by Linus, so both projects will benefit from it.
Via Softpedia