Zephyr is a no-protection microkernel, like VxWorks (but unlike QNX, Minix, or L4, which run user processes in protected mode.) Everything is in one address space. It's actually Rocket, from Wind River, which also sells VxWorks and has open-sourced Rocket. Zephyr is for very small systems. Think smart light bulb, not WiFi router. Supported hardware includes the Arduno Due (ARM) and Arduino 101 (x86). The QEMU emulator can be used for testing. The API is C-oriented and very low level - fibers, threads, mailboxes, semaphores, etc.
Are you saying that Zephyr is Rocket? I didn't see anything in the press release saying that, and I didn't see anything on the web site saying that (admittedly, I only spent a few minutes looking...).
If it is Rocket, is it a product that couldn't get traction so now they are giving it away?
Here's the statement from Wind River:[1] "Wind River contributed the Rocket kernel to Zephyr who brings together industry leaders in software and hardware to build an RTOS for IoT." There will still be a proprietary version of Rocket, which is the same kernel but also has components for connecting to Wind River's "App Cloud", which seems to be a hosted IDE. The Zephyr project offers only command line build tools under Linux.
It's description of features sounds a lot like eCOS's marketing material. That one has been around a while. What's the advantage(s) you see of this one?
Zephyr is a no-protection microkernel, like VxWorks (but unlike QNX, Minix, or L4, which run user processes in protected mode.) Everything is in one address space. It's actually Rocket, from Wind River, which also sells VxWorks and has open-sourced Rocket. Zephyr is for very small systems. Think smart light bulb, not WiFi router. Supported hardware includes the Arduno Due (ARM) and Arduino 101 (x86). The QEMU emulator can be used for testing. The API is C-oriented and very low level - fibers, threads, mailboxes, semaphores, etc.
[1] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2016...