From: Jennifer Finlinson <jennifer@lineo.com>
Subject: Lineo Response to Hard Real-Time Claims By Competitor
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 10:51:00
To: corbet@eklektix.com

You may have noticed a recent announcement by one of Lineo's competitors
claiming they were the "first to deliver hard real-time Linux."

We at Lineo take issue with this claim given the following facts:

1) Through our acquisition and integration of Zentropix, Lineo has been
delivering hard real-time Linux for more than a year now. We have real
customers using our hard real-time solutions today in the areas of flight
simulation, weather monitoring systems, heart monitoring systems, industrial
controls and many others. 

2) The Lineo real-time solution achieves guaranteed hard real-time microsecond
response times today.  This is very different from the "relatively fully
preemptable kernel," announced by this competitor.  

3) This competitor isn't "delivering" anything today. Their current product
is in prototype form and they don't have intentions to deliver their final
product until January of next year at the earliest. 

4) Lineo continues to actively support and promote real-time technologies.
For more information about Lineo's real-time technologies, please visit
http://www.lineo.com/products/realtime_linux/index.html.  

5) Lineo also makes hard real-time available from our open source site
(http://opensource.lineo.com/projects.html). Users can download a full-version
of RTAI (real-time application interface) and AtomicRTAI from this site.


6) At LinuxWorld in San Jose this year, Lineo announced it would integrate
real-time technology into the Embedix SDK, which Lineo will ship in Q4
of this year. For more information on Embedix RealTime read our announcements
(http://www.lineo.com/news_events/press_coverage/realtime.html) or technical
bulletins (http://www.lineo.com/developer/technical_bulletins/embedixrealtime.h
tml). 

We invite you to contact us to discuss more about Lineo's hard real-time
offerings.  

Kind regards,

Jennifer Finlinson
Lineo, Inc.
Tel: 801-426-5001 x264
Cell: 801-319-2713
Jennifer@lineo.com