Wind River Joins Two Open-Source GroupsWind River Joins Two Open-Source Groups

Wind River Systems Inc. said Monday that it has joined two prominent open-source groups, reflecting the strong interest among companies in the use of embedded Linux in specialized devices over proprietary operating systems. The Alameda, Calif., company joined the Open Source Development Labs, which develops and promotes Linux; and the Eclipse Consortium, which was launched by IBM to build better open-source programming tools.

Wind River's proprietary VxWorks operating system, found in devices used in industries ranging from aerospace, defense and automotive to network infrastructure, accounts for 30 percent of the market for embedded systems, experts say. Therefore, the company's embrace of Linux shows that the open-source operating system is gaining momentum.

"This is clearly a wish-I-didn't-need-to-do-this-but-we-do type of move," Gordon Haff, analyst for market researcher Illuminata Inc. said. "Wind River was rather aggressively bad-mouthing Linux not all that long ago."

While companies are not moving exclusively toward embedded Linux, there certainly has been a "fairly broad move," Haff said.

Michel Genard, general manager of Wind River's tools division, said the company has seen "momentum" behind standard embedded technologies among companies.

"What we've seen over the last year is the number of companies looking at Linux and trying to understand whether Linux is relevant in their applications," Genard said. "But we are very much at the beginning of Linux in the embedded space."

Wind River will join the OSDL's Carrier Grade Linux Working Group, which is building specifications for telecommunications equipment makers. Telecommunication manufacturers are the biggest customers for VxWorks, and many of Wind River's network infrastructure customers use its operating system along with Linux, company officials said.

Wind River's participation in the Eclipse Consortium is important because programming tools are key to building specialized applications for embedded systems. In October, Wind River announced that it would sell its own stand-alone tools for VxWorks and embedded Linux.

Haff gave Wind River credit for moving quickly into the Linux camp after making the difficult decision to embrace the competing operating system.

"There are certainly no guarantees that they can translate their past success into the future, but on the other hand, there's not necessarily a reason to think that they can't," Haff said. Also, despite the early interest in embedded Linux, it's too soon to predict how widespread the OS will become.