Former Microsoft operating system: Eclipse Foundation launches ThreadX Alliance

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Just over a year after Microsoft handed over the ThreadX real-time operating system to the Eclipse Foundation, the organization is launching the ThreadX Alliance. The declared aim of the initiative is to promote the open source project in order to ensure its continuous growth and sustainability.

In November 2023, Microsoft handed over the Azure RTOS (Real-Time Operating System)suite to the Eclipse Foundation, which contains the ThreadX real-time operating system at its core. Since then, this name has stood for the complete development suite around the operating system.

Security and marketplace benefits

Members of the Alliance pay a regular fee and in return receive a number of benefits when accessing the project – including access to some security manuals for the development process. They can also obtain license agreements for security certificates. There is an additional cost for both the manuals and the certificates.

Those who are in the ThreadX Alliance can also access a special part of the ThreadX marketplace and receive pre-sales support from some service providers. Exclusive community and developer events are also planned for members.

No influence on the open source code

However, the FAQ emphasizes that the alliance has no influence on the management or content of the open source project, which remains openly available on GitHub under the MIT license.

The annual membership fee is based on company turnover: ThreadX Alliance members with an annual turnover of less than 500 million euros pay 5,000 euros and companies with a higher turnover pay 25,000 euros per year.

Open real-time operating system

Prior to the handover to the Eclipse Foundation, Microsoft had already made the source code for the operating system available on GitHub, but had not developed it open source with the community. Furthermore, use was only permitted for internal development, testing and evaluation free of charge and without a license. A license was required to distribute and sell components with the operating system.

Since the handover, the Eclipse Foundation has continued to develop the project open source in a GitHub repository. Microsoft's Azure RTOS repository on GitHub now only refers to the Eclipse project.

According to Mike Milinkovich, CEO of the Eclipse Foundation, ThreadX runs on more than 12 billion end devices worldwide. In the ThreadX Alliance announcement, Milinkovich refers to the "only security-certified open source real-time operating system". There are other open-source real-time operating systems that do not have the same security certificates as ThreadX, including Zephyr and Amazon's FreeRTOS.

Further details on the ThreadX Alliance can be found in the Eclipse Foundation's announcement.

(rme)