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Why would I use QNX for any project when RTOS Linux is mature? Why would I care? So you can rug-pull license changes? Should I use it because it's cute? It's a

Why would I use QNX for any project when RTOS Linux is mature? Why would I care? So you can rug-pull license changes? Should I use it because it's cute? It's academically interesting? Sure, I've used QNX in the past for those reasons. The next time I pick a soc for a project, and its associated bsp, I'm not going to look for QNX. I'm either going to use whatever freertos distro they include or install the android build tools so i can push an apk to its wackity ass android fork. I suppose if i was doing automotive or medical, the story would be different. But I know the space well enough to know that you have many competitors all nipping at your heels, and with the linux rtos changes, it's not going to get better. This is not 2010. There are options. While QNX has languished behind obscure and annoying licensing requirements, literally dozens of companies have been developing alternatives. Some of them are quite big, and in some cases, have gone to space. At this point, if you want QNX to be taken seriously, you're going to have to do better than "start opening the doors to QNX like things used to be". I'll take it one step further - if it's not completely open source for commercial use, I have no interest in using it. I could be enticed to put up with an Epic-style license if the associated tooling and bsp support was worth my time. I have zero interest in paying a license to get started. Again - not 2010. Your product has been commoditized and now it's a curiosity. The only way it gets enough active development and adoption is if its a community effort.

Dinux 2y ago
Amen
gosub100 2y ago
You would use it if you wanted to get a job doing RTOS dev and wanted to show you had some skin in the game.
- throwaway313373 2y ago
  I don't think that "skin in the game" means what you think it means.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    I meant it as a job-seeker proving they spent time doing a sample project on a real OS, such as QNX, instead of studying leet-code trivia and thinking they're ready for a job. As an interviewer, I would always choose the one who has skin in the game.
- parl_match 2y ago
  lmao "skin in the game". what a useless cliche. that's such a lame excuse, and if for some stupid reason, i chose the rtos first, i would simply choose one of the many competitors that have positive mindshare and increasing install base. freertos, rt linux, hell even vxworks. the simple fact is that rtos are more commodity than ever. if im going to start a project, im going to do it based on the requirements, find a soc and bsp that has excellent support for those requirements, and then follow up writing a task for whatever rtos it uses. for example, im not using freertos because its "cute" and has a neat little floppy disk demo. im currently using amazon's freertos beceause that's what the espxx family supports. im using the esp32 because it has the power profile i need for my sensor project. in today's market, it's absolutely asinine to choose the rtos first. i honestly have no idea what qnx is a first class citizen on anymore. I actually feel bad for anyone who's spent their whole career in QNX-land - that train might be coming to a stop and there's probably a lot of people who would rather not retrain. actually, there's a nugget of wisdom in there for the qnx team: i should be able to buy a $20 board that runs qnx, and fits into the power, performance, and hardware profile of something like the esp32. integrate it heavily with platform.io. let me use qnx without having to specifically go and seek it out and hack on it a bunch.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sov 2y ago
  any commercial rtos shop where QNX may be appropriate is either using 1. some wacky expensive proprietary rtos that you've never heard of, 2. freertos or 3. real-time linux depending on what they need. asking what makes QNX a compelling rtos when freertos exists, is widely supported and used, and has an MIT license is a very valid question. further, no one in embedded actually cares what RTOS you used. they are all similar enough that you won't get stuck if it's a brand new RTOS
  - intern4tional 2y ago
    QNX is heavily used in industries where functional safety or particular high assurance models are required. Sure FreeRTOS has a SafeRTOS mode, but its not sufficiently functional for a modern ADAS stack or complex robotics systems. QNX is used in all major automotive companies around the world for a reason, and a crucial part of NVIDIA's DriveOS stack.
    - gmueckl 2y ago
      QNX is in a space with few competitors. FreeRTOS or ThreadX are designed to provide microcontrollers with scheduling and memory management functionality. They don't depend on fancy things like MMUs or provide frameworks for networking or file systems out for the box. The flipside is that you can compile them down to maybe 30kB of machine code. QNX is designed for more powerful and featureful hardware to drive a software stack with true process isolation and generally provide the bells and whistles of general purpose OS on top of a hard realtime core. It can run complex GUIs without sacrificing its real time capabilities. Not many competitors live in that particular space.
    - karlgkk 2y ago
      > and a crucial part of NVIDIA's DriveOS stack fwiw they have been working hard to support linux as a second option, and have been major contributors to Real Time Linux sooooooo
      - daghamm 2y ago
        Are there any automakers out there that use real-time Linux for anything at or above ASIL-B?
- ryukoposting 2y ago
  Maybe you would have used QNX as an engineer flex in 2012, but as an embedded firmware dev myself, I'd laugh if someone suggested we use QNX for anything. Besides the licensing issues... just why? It confers no imaginable benefit versus any one of dozens of alternatives. It's like if someone suggested I run Haiku on my work laptop.
  - cbsks 2y ago
    ISO 26262 ASIL D safety certification, mature tooling and ecosystem, easy to hire experienced devs, “it worked for the last 5 projects”, etc.
    - karlgkk 2y ago
      There's a few vendors that sell FreeRTOS forks that have that cert. SAFERTOS is a very common one > mature tooling and ecosystem Amazon has been working on freertos for a long time > easy to hire experienced devs tbh if you've used one rtos, you've used them all. the learning curve is in the concepts, not the api. any good vendor will have engineering support that helps you where appropriate > “it worked for the last 5 projects” inertia only takes you so far
EasyMark 2y ago
Name/reputation still means a lot to some people, as does not learning yet another OS. Not everyone cares if something is FOSS or not. Different people have different leaning when it comes to this stuff, and that shouldn't be surprising.
- karlgkk 2y ago
  > Name/reputation still means a lot to some people, as does not learning yet another OS Great, people on QNX can keep using it. A stagnating user base doesn't make for a good business. > Not everyone cares if something is FOSS or not. No, but I would rather not enter into onerous licensing terms if better ones exist
- Woeps 2y ago
  I don't know QNX, never heard of them. But the name and reputation of Blackberry are not things I would consider ... stellar or relevant...

Dinux 2y ago

Amen

gosub100 2y ago

You would use it if you wanted to get a job doing RTOS dev and wanted to show you had some skin in the game.

throwaway313373 2y ago
I don't think that "skin in the game" means what you think it means.
- gosub100 2y ago
  I meant it as a job-seeker proving they spent time doing a sample project on a real OS, such as QNX, instead of studying leet-code trivia and thinking they're ready for a job. As an interviewer, I would always choose the one who has skin in the game.
parl_match 2y ago
lmao "skin in the game". what a useless cliche. that's such a lame excuse, and if for some stupid reason, i chose the rtos first, i would simply choose one of the many competitors that have positive mindshare and increasing install base. freertos, rt linux, hell even vxworks. the simple fact is that rtos are more commodity than ever. if im going to start a project, im going to do it based on the requirements, find a soc and bsp that has excellent support for those requirements, and then follow up writing a task for whatever rtos it uses. for example, im not using freertos because its "cute" and has a neat little floppy disk demo. im currently using amazon's freertos beceause that's what the espxx family supports. im using the esp32 because it has the power profile i need for my sensor project. in today's market, it's absolutely asinine to choose the rtos first. i honestly have no idea what qnx is a first class citizen on anymore. I actually feel bad for anyone who's spent their whole career in QNX-land - that train might be coming to a stop and there's probably a lot of people who would rather not retrain. actually, there's a nugget of wisdom in there for the qnx team: i should be able to buy a $20 board that runs qnx, and fits into the power, performance, and hardware profile of something like the esp32. integrate it heavily with platform.io. let me use qnx without having to specifically go and seek it out and hack on it a bunch.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sov 2y ago
any commercial rtos shop where QNX may be appropriate is either using 1. some wacky expensive proprietary rtos that you've never heard of, 2. freertos or 3. real-time linux depending on what they need. asking what makes QNX a compelling rtos when freertos exists, is widely supported and used, and has an MIT license is a very valid question. further, no one in embedded actually cares what RTOS you used. they are all similar enough that you won't get stuck if it's a brand new RTOS
- intern4tional 2y ago
  QNX is heavily used in industries where functional safety or particular high assurance models are required. Sure FreeRTOS has a SafeRTOS mode, but its not sufficiently functional for a modern ADAS stack or complex robotics systems. QNX is used in all major automotive companies around the world for a reason, and a crucial part of NVIDIA's DriveOS stack.
  - gmueckl 2y ago
    QNX is in a space with few competitors. FreeRTOS or ThreadX are designed to provide microcontrollers with scheduling and memory management functionality. They don't depend on fancy things like MMUs or provide frameworks for networking or file systems out for the box. The flipside is that you can compile them down to maybe 30kB of machine code. QNX is designed for more powerful and featureful hardware to drive a software stack with true process isolation and generally provide the bells and whistles of general purpose OS on top of a hard realtime core. It can run complex GUIs without sacrificing its real time capabilities. Not many competitors live in that particular space.
  - karlgkk 2y ago
    > and a crucial part of NVIDIA's DriveOS stack fwiw they have been working hard to support linux as a second option, and have been major contributors to Real Time Linux sooooooo
    - daghamm 2y ago
      Are there any automakers out there that use real-time Linux for anything at or above ASIL-B?
ryukoposting 2y ago
Maybe you would have used QNX as an engineer flex in 2012, but as an embedded firmware dev myself, I'd laugh if someone suggested we use QNX for anything. Besides the licensing issues... just why? It confers no imaginable benefit versus any one of dozens of alternatives. It's like if someone suggested I run Haiku on my work laptop.
- cbsks 2y ago
  ISO 26262 ASIL D safety certification, mature tooling and ecosystem, easy to hire experienced devs, “it worked for the last 5 projects”, etc.
  - karlgkk 2y ago
    There's a few vendors that sell FreeRTOS forks that have that cert. SAFERTOS is a very common one > mature tooling and ecosystem Amazon has been working on freertos for a long time > easy to hire experienced devs tbh if you've used one rtos, you've used them all. the learning curve is in the concepts, not the api. any good vendor will have engineering support that helps you where appropriate > “it worked for the last 5 projects” inertia only takes you so far

EasyMark 2y ago

Name/reputation still means a lot to some people, as does not learning yet another OS. Not everyone cares if something is FOSS or not. Different people have different leaning when it comes to this stuff, and that shouldn't be surprising.

karlgkk 2y ago
> Name/reputation still means a lot to some people, as does not learning yet another OS Great, people on QNX can keep using it. A stagnating user base doesn't make for a good business. > Not everyone cares if something is FOSS or not. No, but I would rather not enter into onerous licensing terms if better ones exist
Woeps 2y ago
I don't know QNX, never heard of them. But the name and reputation of Blackberry are not things I would consider ... stellar or relevant...