UpFRONT

An embedded Linux tsunami washed ashore in Tokyo on July 14th, as a handful of the world's most powerful electronics manufacturers including Fujitsu, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, NEC and Toshiba joined nineteen other companies and academic institutions to launch a Japanese embedded Linux consortium. The mission of the new Japan Embedded Linux Consortium (EMBLIX) strongly echoes that of the Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC) formed in Chicago earlier this year: to promote the use of Linux in a broad spectrum of next-generation intelligent devices and embedded systems. This strong showing of support from Japan's consumer electronics giants adds momentum to the already rapid proliferation of embedded Linux.

The founding members of EMBLIX include Advanced Data Controls, Access, Canon, CATS, Centura Embedded Systems, Densan, ERG, Elmic Systems, FDS Embedded Systems, Fujitsu, Gaio Technology, Hitachi, Lineo Japan, Metrowerks, Mitsubishi Electric, Montavista Software Japan, NEC Electronic Devices, Red Hat, Toshiba, Toyohashi University of Science & Technology, TurboLinux Japan, Waseda University and YDC. Dr. Tatsuo Nakajima (Waseda University) was named interim chair, while John Cheuck (TurboLinux Japan) and Y. Paul Kunimine (Gaio Technology) are serving as interim vice chairmen. First-year membership in EMBLIX costs $1,000 per company and is waived for academic institutions. According to Cheuck, EMBLIX membership is restricted to corporations having a permanently established presence in Japan.

Visit EMBLIX at www.emblix.org.

Membership in the Embedded Linux Consortium surpassed 70 companies within three months of the group's March 1 launch. In June, the ELC elected its first Board of Directors: Dr. Inder Singh, chairman and CEO, LynuxWorks; Michael Tiemann, chief technology officer, Red Hat; James Ready, CEO, MontaVista Software; Tim Bird, chief technology officer, Lineo; Dan Bandera, business line manager, IBM Pervasive Computing; and Greg Wright, an independent Linux community member. Wright represents the 20+ “noncorporate” ELC members on the board.

Congratulations are also in order for Ralf Doewich, who won the ELC's logo contest. Doewich, whose entry placed first among a field of fifty, was the happy recipient of an HP C500 digital camera donated by ELC member Hewlett Packard.

Visit the ELC at www.embedded-linux.org.

Organizers of a new Real-Time Linux Consortium (RTLC) will hold an organizational meeting during the Second Annual Real-Time Linux Workshop on November 29 in Orlando, Florida (“Tux Meets Donald Duck?”). The organizers have created a temporary RTLC web site where you can learn more about both the workshop and the proposed real-time consortium: www.thinkingnerds.com/projects/rtos-ws/rtlc.html

The second Embedded Linux Expo & Conference (ELEC) will occur on October 27 in Westborough, Massachusetts. The event combines an embedded Linux vendor expo with an all-day technical conference. The conference features technically oriented talks on integrating embedded Linux into information appliances, smart devices and other kinds of embedded systems. For further information, see www.rtcgroup.com/elinuxexpo/index2.html.

The Embedded Linux market recently gained two new web resources:

In spite of Microsoft's advantage in marketing dollars, Apache continues to be the web server of choice. The issue came up again because Microsoft is attempting to migrate their hotmail.com site over to Windows 2000 boxes.

When Microsoft bought hotmail.com and linkexchange.com, they bought working sites based on FreeBSD. There were rumors of an earlier conversion attempt for hotmail.com, but apparently those were just rumors. Now it is happening.

The current report from Netcraft's web survey (www.netcraft.com/survey) Apache's market share and a decrease in Microsoft's market share. Thus, Microsoft seems to be going against the trend with http://www.hotmail.com/.

Here are some details from the survey:

Server | June 2000 | July 2000 | % ChangeApache | 10,704,306 | 11,412,233 | +0.28Microsoft ISS | 3,485,995 | 3,608,415 | -0.50Netscape-Enterprise | 1,154,558 | 1,225,085 | +0.17

Looking at longer-term trends, it was back in 1996 when Apache started getting significant market share and passed NCSA for the top slot. Over the years, Apache has experienced steady growth. Microsoft-IIS grew in market share up until the beginning of this year, but now continues to fall.

Why is this the case? We talked to one ISP in Canada and found that they run Apache on Linux, claiming to have about the same amount of traffic on their single machine as the ISP a block away has on their array of nine NT servers. Enough said.