The rise and rise of embedded Linux
Published: 08 Apr 2005 11:30 BST
What's the revenue split between Linux and VxWorks?
Linux is still less than 10 percent. We're still in the really early days. The Linux revenue is dampened because it's sold as subscription. There's no product license fee or royalty. It'll roll in slowly over time.
How fast is the cutover to Linux happening?
We see Linux bordering on becoming half the business probably in three to five years.
What are the complexities of Linux in the embedded market?
It's very fragmented. In servers, one processor architecture matters. In the embedded market, there are about 60 that matter. That complexity is what I call the matrix of pain.
Are there intellectual-property issues with Linux? Your predecessors briefly tried to promote the open source BSD version of Unix, arguing that its advantage over Linux was that customers could make it proprietary.
It's always on your radar. We have a lot of expertise on the issue of the GPL. What we've done is taken a developer suite and wrapped that around an optimised distribution with middleware that's been selected and tuned to address specific vertical markets. There's a clear demarcation in where the operating system stops and the developer environment begins.
Is the GPL a problem sometimes?
Where Linux is a fit, customers really have been embracing it. There is a certain set of customers in Asia concerned about GPL leakage. For them we have VxWorks.
By "leakage," do you mean the so-called viral issue around the GPL?
Yes. They're afraid their proprietary middleware will seep back and be governed by GPL.
Is that a risk?
I think that's a perceived risk. Depending on how deep they are into the Linux kernel (the part governed by the GPL), it could be an actual risk. Most customers aren't operating at the kernel level. There are some borderline cases.
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