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from the next-up-are-mcot-msofa-and-mrecliner dept.
Reported last week at the BBC, CNet and IEEE Spectrum is the news that ARM is launching a new OS targeting low power, low footprint devices.
The operating system, called mbed OS, is meant to resolve productivity problems that arise from fragmentation—where different devices in the so-called “Internet of things” (IoT) market run on a hodgepodge of different protocols. ARM is looking to consolidate those devices under a single software layer that's simple, secure, and free for all manufacturers to use.
(Although the IEEE article reports that "this is the first operating system ARM has ever developed", that slightly glosses over the history of RiscOS by Acorn, of which ARM was a subsidiary.)
The software comes as a free "mbed OS" and a licensable "Device server". Although parts of the OS will be open source:
ARM says it wants to retain control of other parts to ensure mbed remains unfragmented
More technical details at the mbed developer site. One oddity is the Online Toolchain, which provides the device IDE and version control online.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday October 07 2014, @05:49PM
Why keep TCP around in a box that will never use it? and where flash and RAM comes at a premium. Every byte counts. The main repository don't get modified. One branch, modify and deploy.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Tuesday October 07 2014, @06:10PM
First of all, if you will never use TCP, you're not part of the internet of things. You're an incompatible oddity - and that's exactly what this OS is intended to discourage.
Secondly, if every byte were to count, you wouldn't be using a 32/64 bit chip like an ARM Cortex. So it's irrelevant. Moores law has made the few KB that a TCP layer needs an irrelevance for anything that's sophisticated enough to be networked.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday October 07 2014, @06:19PM
UDP is then never a part of Internet of Things? neither IGMP, multicast etc either?
How many bytes you can afford is also dependent on how much other stuff there is. And TCP is guaranteed to be way more than a 1 kByte in most circumstances.
(Score: 1) by lizardloop on Wednesday October 08 2014, @08:14AM
I think the point Basil was trying to make is that for an internet of things to work then the communication methods need to be standardised. Something that is probably best handled at the OS level by large vendors than by each individual device manufacturer. Ideally a device manufacturer would not be dictating whether or not they use TCP. They would just use whatever the standardised communication method was.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday October 08 2014, @01:20PM
The problem isn't likely to be the OS. It's going to be what you fill those standard compliant UDP (or TCP) packets with. And the lack of security for any application. If security is implemented, it's usually tied to the vendor in way that is detrimental to the customer. Asfaik there's no standard for say IP aware light bulbs. And there will likely be as many protocols as there is vendors.
OS API is of course another area of incompatibility.