Intel Purchases Linutronix To Revive It’s Real Time Linux Kernel

Developers Of The PREEMPT_RT Patch Set To Revive An Old Intel Project

You may not have known that Intel has been working on developing a real time Linux Kernel, but apparently they have been for more than 10 years.  They have brought new life to the project by purchasing Linutronix, an expert in real time Linux applications, for an undisclosed amount of money.  Amongst other projects, Linutronix was the architect of PREEMPT_R, a patch set now maintained by a group of programmers who work to make Linux kernel as preemptible as possible on a wide variety of processors.

Over the years the maintenance and development of PREEMPT_R has languished as people moved on to other projects, but will now have the backing of Intel.  They also get another benefit, in the form of Linutronix’s CTO Thomas Gleixner who has been a major driver in developing security mitigations for the Linux kernel’s x86 codebase.

Intel and the open source community once seemed to completely separated, but that is obviously not true anymore.  With even Microsoft offering Linux based Azure instances, the open source community has become more and more integrated with the large companies they offered an alternative to.  Let’s hope at least some of their altruism is retained as they are absorbed into various corporations.