Azure RTOS (formerly ThreadX)

2023: Source Code Discovery

On November 21, 2023, Microsoft announced the discovery of the entire source code of the Azure RTOS real-time operating system. Microsoft received the rights to this platform, previously distributed under the ThreadX name, in 2019, along with the acquisition of Express Logic.

According to the Redmond Corporation, by the end of November 2023, the named OS was installed on more than 12 billion of the most diverse devices around the world. These are embedded equipment, production management solutions, consumer electronics, medical devices, etc. The platform is designed specifically for deeply embedded applications, as well as real-time tasks and IoT applications. Azure RTOS requires very few resources - only 2 KB of memory for the instruction storage area and 1 KB of RAM. This is mainly due to the single-layer picokernel architecture and automatic scaling.

Azure RTOS source code revealed

Azure RTOS sources are reportedly available under an MIT license developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is a licensing license that allows programmers to use licensed code in closed software, provided that the text of the license is provided with this software. After the publication of the Azure code, RTOS will come under the control of the non-profit organization Eclipse Foundation, changing its name to Eclipse ThreadX. In addition to the code of the OS itself, related components will be opened.

Vendor-independent, open-source RTOS, certified for security-critical applications and published under a permissive license, is a game changer in the market. We are pleased to assist in the development of the ThreadX community, "says Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation.[1]

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