[j-nsp] Junos OS Evolved

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Alain Hebert <ahebert at pubnix.net> said:
>     I haven't unpackaged an Evolved distribution yet, but my
> experience with WindRiver licensing back in early 2000, it would be
> pricey.

Heh, when you pay 6 figures for a router, two copies of Wind River Linux
for the REs is probably barely a bump.  Also, I expect Juniper would be
able to get some volume discounts.  After all, there are a number of
free IoT type Linux distributions as well now that give some level of
competition to Wind River (obviously not the same, but probably bring
down the price).

Also, back when "embedded system" meant getting like 4MB RAM and 8MB
flash, it was a lot harder (read: pricier) to get a regular Linux setup
into that.  Now that even phones are often coming with 6-8GB RAM and
64-256G flash (and oh yeah, running Linux ;) )... "embedded" isn't quite
the same anymore.

>     As for FreeBSD, they could have gone the way of upgrading the
> kernel (I saw some evidences about 10.x but no confirmation yet) but
> depending of their initial work done during the 4.x days, switching
> might have been a better financial choice.

They've upgraded FreeBSD a few times over the years, but each time it
tended to be a "big deal" upgrade (versions you couldn't skip, no
downgrades without a full reload, changed behvaior, etc.).

-- 
Chris Adams <cma at cmadams.net>