Intel acquires Linutronix

[Posted February 23, 2022 by corbet]

Intel has announced the acquisition of Linutronix.

Linutronix is comprised of a team of highly qualified and motivated employees with a wealth of experience and involvement in the ongoing development of Linux. Led by CEO Heinz Egger and CTO Thomas Gleixner, Linutronix is the architect of PREEMPT_RT (Real Time) and the leading technology provider for industrial Linux. Gleixner has been the principal maintainer of x86 architecture in the Linux kernel since 2008.

The plan is evidently to continue to run Linutronix as an independent company rather than absorbing it into Intel.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 16:09 UTC (Wed) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (4 responses)

> The plan is evidently to continue to run Linutronix as an independent company rather than absorbing it into Intel.

They always say that, to avoid the employees from all quitting. Then they make the pot warmer and warmer :D

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 16:42 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

But if the bulk of the company's value is in the employees, turning up the heat will make them melt away ...

Cheers,
Wol

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 19:40 UTC (Wed) by hkario (subscriber, #94864) [Link] (2 responses)

But it happens after the stock market runs after a new squirrel, and doesn't bark on the CEO.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 20:03 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (1 responses)

In this case it doesn't matter: if future Intel management decides to mess up Linutronix, most of the people will leave and continue their Linux work somewhere else; no code is lost. This is very different from an acquisition that lets the buyer take the work and make it proprietary.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 23:30 UTC (Wed) by developer122 (guest, #152928) [Link]

CentOS vibes.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 16:23 UTC (Wed) by calumapplepie (guest, #143655) [Link]

In other words: Emails sent by the realtime kernel developers to CPU architects complaining about (x) misfeature of x86 will no longer be marked with [EXTERNAL]

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 17:03 UTC (Wed) by paravoid (subscriber, #32869) [Link]

Not too long ago, Thomas Gleixner mentioned in a presentation of his on Preempt-RT: "Funding is and always was a challenge. Development and maintenance is currently stalled due to a funding gap". (This is a quote from https://www.linutronix.de/PDF/2021_A_guided_tour_through_... slide 56.)

I have no inside knowledge to know if this is related or helps or not, but one can only hope it alleviates at least some of these concerns. It'd be good to see funding going to people that have managed to accomplish such a huge initiative. Congrats to the team.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 20:37 UTC (Wed) by kiko (subscriber, #69905) [Link]

Congratulations tglx and team; it's been such a long time but happy to see the news!

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 23, 2022 23:39 UTC (Wed) by developer122 (guest, #152928) [Link] (3 responses)

I expect we'll see a lot more RT linux industrial systems running on intel atoms than arm processors. I don't think this is going to be great for competition.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 24, 2022 0:04 UTC (Thu) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link] (2 responses)

What incentives does this acquisitive change that would push users to pick Intel over ARM?

Short of deliberately sabotaging ARM support, which seems unlikely, the only motivator that I see is making the Atom platform better. Which is a win in my book.

Besides, Intel is the underdog in the embedded space, so if anything, this would increase competition in this space rather than decrease it.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 24, 2022 12:40 UTC (Thu) by joib (subscriber, #8541) [Link] (1 responses)

Intel also recently joined the RISC-V foundation.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-invests-in-open-sourc...

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Mar 1, 2022 9:46 UTC (Tue) by Lawless-M (guest, #155377) [Link]

Microsoft / Google LLC & Apple, Inc. are all members of the W3C standards committee

https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 24, 2022 12:08 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (3 responses)

> The plan is evidently to continue to run Linutronix as an independent company rather than absorbing it into Intel.

If this is all it is, why not just invest in the company? What does acquisition do differently if this is truly the way it's supposed to be perceived?

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 24, 2022 12:18 UTC (Thu) by atnot (subscriber, #124910) [Link] (2 responses)

Considering Linutronics was mentioning funding issues, I'm not sure it makes sense to invest in a company where you would be 99% of their revenue anyway. Much less effort and risk for everyone involved to just make it official and aqui(hi)re them instead.

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 25, 2022 20:30 UTC (Fri) by swilmet (subscriber, #98424) [Link]

The drawback is that companies get bigger and bigger, they have more power (creating megacorporations, monopolies, etc).

Intel acquires Linutronix

Posted Feb 25, 2022 21:22 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> I'm not sure it makes sense to invest in a company where you would be 99% of their revenue anyway.

Why not? Isn't this how VC investing works?

I just don't like seeing small companies get bought up and then amalgamated into the larger beast with only one facet slightly improved in the main products of the larger beast. The graveyard[1] is full of dead companies absorbed without much to show much of the time (AFAICS). And the goodwill that gets burned by not providing continuity for your users just breeds mistrust of the purchasing company in the long run. Not as much as it should, but it's not nice having a service you like and use get absorbed into some massive org like Twitter or Facebook and then you're back to those (IMO) terrible user experiences.

[1]https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/