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The Zephyr Project Celebrates 5th Anniversary with new members and inaugural Zephyr Developer Summit on June 8-10
AVSystem, Golioth, Pat-Eta Electronics, RISC-V International and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden joins Zephyr’s global open source RTOS ecosystem
SAN FRANCISCO, June 3, 2021 – The Zephyr Project,an open source project at the Linux Foundation that builds a safe, secure and flexible real-time operating system (RTOS) for resource-constrained devices, continues to gain momentum with its 5th anniversary this year. To celebrate the milestone, the Zephyr Project is hosting its inaugural Zephyr Developer Summit on June 8-10. The virtual event, which is free to attend, features several Zephyr leaders presenting real-world use cases, best practices, tutorials and more.
Happy 5th Anniversary
Launched in 2016 by the Linux Foundation, the Zephyr Project has continued to grow its technical community each year. Today, almost 1,000 contributors have helped the project surpass 50,000 commits building advanced support for multiple architectures such as ARC, Arm, Intel, Nios, RISC-V, SPARC and Tensilica and more than 250 boards.
The first-ever Zephyr Developer Summit will offer community members a chance to learn more about the fastest growing RTOS in an informal educational environment.
“We are kicking off our first Developer Summit with an impressive line-up of Zephyr thought leaders and ambassadors for the growing Zephyr community of contributors and users.” said Joel Stapleton, Chair of the Zephyr Project Governing Board and Principal Engineer Manager at Nordic Semiconductor. “The strength of engagement the project has with its members and IoT solution providers reflects the importance of open source efforts to build secure and safe embedded technologies for increasingly connected applications in industrial, smart home, wearables and energy; and for computing platforms integrating microcontrollers with ever-increasing capabilities and functions.”
Sample summit sessions include power management, USB support, motor control; user presentations that showcase Zephyr with Renode and TensorFlow Lite and RISC-V and contributor spotlights for securing MCUBoot, using OPC UA, energy-efficient device testing and developing hardware. Proposals were reviewed by the Programming Committee, which includes Anas Nashif, Intel; Carles Cufi, Nordic Semiconductor; Jonathan Beri, Golioth; Keith Short, Google; Maureen Helm, NXP; and Olof Johansson, Facebook. To see the complete schedule, click here. The registration deadline is June 4, click here to register.
The U.S. Executive Order on Cybersecurity
Less than a month ago, the United States White House released an Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity that addressed the malicious cyber attacks that have become more frequent in the last few years. In a blog, the Linux Foundation responded how Zephyr RTOS, along with several other projects, has already built some of the support needed for a more secure future. Zephyr is able to generate Software Bill of Materials (SBOMs) automatically during the build and this capability will be available in the upcoming 2.6 release. It is one of the few open source projects that is a CVE Numbering Authority(CNA) and has an active Project Security Incident Response Team(PSIRT) that manages responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities to product makers.
Product creators using zephyr can sign up for free to be notified of vulnerabilities.
“SBOMs can communicate details about a software package’s contents, being able to understand exactly which source files are included in a resource constrained software image is key to understanding if it may be vulnerable to an exploit,” said Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation. “SBOMs created by manual processes can often be incomplete, incorrect or out-of-date as a software package advances. By being able to generate the SBOM during the build, and take it to the source file level, not just the component level, better diagnosis and detection of vulnerable states is possible and addresses some of the best practices mentioned in the EO. Zephyr is being used today in thousands of wearables and other products with constrained environments. By automatically creating SBOMs during builds, the development process becomes easier, more efficient and improves maintainability in field.”
Zephyr’s Growing Ecosystem
Today, the Zephyr Project also welcomes AVSystem, Golioth, Pat-Eta Electronics, RISC-V and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden to its global RTOS ecosystem. These new members join Adafruit, Antmicro, BayLibre, Eclipse Foundation, Facebook, Fiware, Foundries.io, Google, Intel, Laird Connectivity, Linaro, Memfault, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Oticon, Parasoft, SiFive, Synopsys and teenage engineering, among others.
“We see amazing opportunities for IoT deployments involving resource-constrained devices operating in cellular LPWA networks,” said Marcin Nagy, Product Director for IoT, AVSystem. “We are sure that combining the Zephyr RTOS with our expertise in the Lightweight M2M standard will contribute to the acceleration of secure and standards-based IoT launches.”
“We can speak at length about the technical merits of Zephyr – the kernel design, native networking, scalable board support model and so on – but the largest differentiator is the community,” says Jonathan Beri, CEO of Golioth. “From chipset vendors to ecosystem players, it feels like we’re rising the tide for everyone to make the most secure & reliable open source RTOS in the market and we couldn’t be more excited to contribute to the project and community.”
“We are happy to be part of the Zephyr Project and hope to bring it more into the academic environment, especially within STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics),” said Sanyaade Adekoya, Developer, Programmer and Lecturer at Pat-Eta Electronics. “It has been challenging to bring RTOSes within the academic research sector and getting them in the hands of undergraduate learners. Our research extends the use of Zephyr RTOS in IoT, Edge Computing, Robotics, Smart and Wearable devices. The Zephyr Project will be a driving platform for our students that will make it easier for them to create ideas, projects, innovations and more. We look forward to showcasing our students’ Zephyr-related projects. ”
“RISC-V and Zephyr were both designed to drive innovation in the hardware space with open source technologies that are accessible to everyone,” said Mark Himelstein, CTO of RISC-V. “Many of our members are already taking advantage of the flexibility of RISC-V and Zephyr to design end-to-end open source solutions for resource-constrained devices. We look forward to collaborating with the Zephyr Project to offer even more opportunities for the open source community to innovate.”
“Zephyr RTOS enables us to rapidly prototype Thread wireless networks and is an excellent research platform for our work in IoT security,” said Samuel Lindemer, Research Engineer at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. “The interactive shell and configuration menu make it intuitive for new users, and the open-source community support is unparalleled.”
To learn more about Zephyr RTOS, visit the Zephyr website and blog.
About the Zephyr Project
The Zephyr Project is a small, scalable real-time operating system for use on resource-constrained systems supporting multiple architectures. To learn more, please visit www.zephyrproject.org.
About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.
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Interview with Daniel Scales, Chief Brand Counsel, Linux Foundation
Jason Perlow, Director of Project Insights and Editorial Content at the Linux Foundation, spoke with Daniel Scales about the importance of protecting trademarks in open source projects.
JP: It’s great to have you here today, and also, welcome to the Linux Foundation. First, can you tell me a bit about yourself, where you are from, and your interests outside work?
DS: Thanks, Jason! It is great to be here. I grew up in Upstate New York, lived in Washington and London for a few years after college, and have been in Boston for the last 20+ years. Outside of work, I coach my daughter’s soccer team, I like to cook and play my bass guitar, and I am really looking forward to getting back to some live music and sporting events.
JP: And from what organization are you joining us?
DS: I have been with the Boston law firm Choate, Hall & Stewart since 2011. In addition to advising The Linux Foundation and other clients on trademark matters, I helped clients with open source license questions, technology licenses, and IP-focused transactions. Before Choate, I worked as IP Counsel at Avid Technology, where I managed their trademark portfolio through a global rebranding and supported the engineering team on technology licenses.
JP: So, how did you get into Intellectual Property law?
DS: Great question. I studied economics in college and took a fantastic senior seminar on the economics of intellectual property. After graduation, I worked in the economics consulting group at Ernst & Young. A big part of my job there was determining the value of a company’s intangible property, which in many cases were its brands. I went to law school intending to study trademarks and the new field of “internet law” (this term probably dates me) and started my legal career at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault, which had a cutting-edge trademark and open source group.
JP: We typically think of IP and Trademark law as it applies to consumer products and commercial entities. What is the difference between those and when open source projects and organizations use brands?
DS: On one level, there really isn’t a difference. A trademark signifies the unique source of a good or service. Trademarks help consumers, developers, and users distinguish various offerings, and they communicate the specific source and quality of those offerings. Software developers and users need to understand what code they have and where it came from. Trademarks help communicate that information. Of course, the specific issues that every brand and brand owner faces and how they address them are different, but many of the core principles are the same.
JP: What are some of the trademark issues you’ve seen come up in open source communities?
DS: While it happens in every industry, I see many “helpful” people apply to register projects’ trademarks when they are not the rightful owner. Sometimes they have good intentions, sometimes not, but it can be a lot of work to sort it out either way. I’ve also had the opportunity to work with many different people and companies on project branding. It is amazing how many different philosophies there are regarding branding, even within the software industry. Much of what we do is to bring these folks together to determine the best approach for the specific project. I also spend a lot of time debating the scope of trademark rights with opposing counsel, but that isn’t really unique to open source: one lawyer tried to convince me that his client had the exclusive right to use a picture of a hop flower on a beer label.
Other common issues are helping companies register a mark for their company or product and then used the same mark for an open source project. The neutrality of those situations is imbalanced, and the Linux Foundation has worked with organizations making this transition. Sometimes it involves rebranding the open source project, and we assist in finding and clearing a new name for the community to use independent of the company that started it.
JP: Why is the Linux Foundation a good place for open source projects to protect their brands?
DS: We have worked with many open source projects on their trademarks, and we learn something with every new experience. We can help them name the project at the beginning, take steps to protect their trademarks across the globe, and show them how trademarks can be a tool to build their communities and increase participation and adoption. We also recognize the importance of our neutral position in the industries we serve and how that is fundamental to open governance.
Also Read: Open Source Communities and Trademarks: A Reprise
JP: Trademark conformance can also protect a project from technical drift. How can a trademark conformance program be used to encourage conformance with a project’s code base or interfaces?
DS: Great point. As in most areas of trademarks, clarity and consistency are key. Trademarks used in a conformance program can be a great tool to communicate quickly and accurately to the target community. Projects can develop specific and transparent criteria so that users understand exactly what the conformance trademark symbolizes. This can be much more effective and efficient for projects and users alike than everyone deciding for themselves what a term like “compatible” might mean.
Also Read: Driving Compatibility with Code and Specifications through Conformance Trademark Programs
JP: Do projects at the Linux Foundation give up all control of their trademark? How do you decide what enforcement to pursue or not pursue?
DS: On the contrary — we work very closely with project leadership throughout the lifecycle of their trademarks. This includes trademark enforcement. Typically, the first step is to figure out whether the situation requires enforcement (in the traditional legal sense) or if it is simply a matter of educating another party. More often than not, we can reach out to the other party, discuss our project and our trademarks, discuss our concerns, and work out a solution that works for everyone and strengthens our brands. But like any brand owner, we do sometimes have to take other action to protect our projects’ trademarks, and we work closely with our projects in those situations, too.
JP: Thanks, Daniel. It’s been great talking to you today!
The post Interview with Daniel Scales, Chief Brand Counsel, Linux Foundation appeared first on Linux Foundation.
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