i was wondering if perhaps i am not the only one who would be interested in putting together some sort of bounty program for qnx related coding. for example i would love to see a mantained version of abiword, a basic paint program (native), and a native AIM client (or someone to mantain the GTK2 port and then we can have newer more stable versions of GAIM). and perhaps a photon native CD burning app. as i am not that great a coder and have little time to work on any of these i would be willing to pay some money (if others did as well) if someone else did it. aka a bounty program. this could also be used for drivers and other things of course…so what do u guys think. like the idea or am i alone on this one?
anybody bump
Allow me to ask, what would be the point?
more apps for qnx. quite simple really
And what would be the point You’d be swiming against QSS own wave.
There was openqnx, which although as a web site is doing good, but as an effort to provide open software is not doing much (aside the XFree stuff)
There was the 3rd party cd, that was drop.
There is the OpenCD, which we haven’t heard for a while. Maybe you could make yourself part of that effort.
My point is the software that you mention “abiword, a basic paint program (native), and a native AIM client” are already available on much suitable desktop platform then QNX. Current QSS’s behavior (i’m not saying it’s good or bad) makes porting these stuff a total waste of brain power if you ask me.
To me, it’s like trying to add a good sound system to a F1 race car or Indy car (pick you preference). It’s not what these car are meant to do.
I disagree… the new QNX runtime CD proves that QSS is interested in running QNX on normal PC’s. The more software is available, the better. AFAIR the 3rd party CD is no longer maintained because it was too much work and as the name suggests, it is 3rd party, so a 3rd party should maintain it. 
I hope the QOpenCD will keep the momentum going.
It’s sad, but I have to agree with mario,
I don’t think Harman (or call them QSS if you like) is interested in running QNX on a normal PC, not talking about QNX as a desktop OS.
IMHO they don’t even care about the customers working in the automation sector anymore, once one of QNX’ key strengths. (At least they don’t care very much, allthough they say different)
I think embedded / automotive is QNX’ future, and you won’t need abiword in you toaster, would you?
Too much work, there is no such think as too much work. The real issue is return on investment…
with QNX’s versitile nature and its ability to adapt to meet any criteria it needs to, i dont think that Harman will only keep it to the automotive route. and with x86 chips getting mt be lower and lower power (via 7 series and intels “less than 1 watt” chip that will be comming out) i think that QNX will stay with the abilities to run on standard x86 hardware. also with the 6.4 release there are going to be more GNU tols suported in QNX. why would they do that if not for portablility from linux to qnx? makes sence to me anyways…
Why do you think QNX cares less for industrial automation than let’s say 3 years ago? I haven’t seen any negative change, on the contrary, the runtime CD is x86 only and ideal for industrial automation companies who don’t want to make their own boot images etc. I think it’s funny that everyone seems to ‘know’ what Harman wants, but let’s face it, no one of us knows, and maybe even Harman does not know.
IMHO QNX lacks of support for modern hardware (e.g. graphic, (W)Lan, SATA, tape drives). So getting a modern machine to run QNX is always somewhat tricky. (Have you ever tried to get QNX running on a Laptop? Or think of the problem to get a machine with usb-keyboard / usb-mouse running, this was discussed just some weeks ago.)
Another point is licensing:
QNX 6.3 licensing is clearly layed out for products produced in huge numbers, you can’t afford to buy e.g. Network SDK for only 5 projects. (Sure, there is some movement in the whole licensing issue now, but this only happend due to the pressure imposed by QNX’ automation customers.)
I’ve got QNX running on my laptop. But yes it was difficult, I had to use the SETIRQ utility to re-assign some interrupts. But QNX hardware support was never great. I don’t think this has changed (negative or positive) since the Harman aquisition. It’s really a problem for QNX because they have to write most drivers on their own, while for other OS’, mainly Windows, the drivers come from the manufacturer.
Regarding the USB-only install, I hear this is currently being addressed.
The licensing model really has changed a lot compared to QNX4. I guess you mean the Extended Networking TDK which is so expensive? Yes it’s for sure targeted at big companies… Maybe a pricing attached to the size of the project would be better…
We’ve been using QNX for industrial automation for about 10 years. Hardware support is VASTLY better today than at any point prior to 6.3. I’ve had very little difficulty getting 6.3 running on laptops. I’ve had no difficulty with graphics drivers. I admit we always use PS/2 keyboards, but we’ve had no trouble with USB mice. 6.3 made USB flash sticks work. CD burning is a pain (we just don’t bother) but with USB storage we don’t care anymore.
Yes, there’s lots of software I would like to see run in Photon natively. Some kind of PDF viewer comes to mind, or ANY vector graphics format for that matter. We’d like to be able to display electrical and mechanical drawing on our industrial controllers. And when the HELL am I going to get ETFS?
Still, I’m pretty happy with QNX (the OS / dev system). Between 6.1 and 6.2 we took a pretty extensive survey of RTOSes, and I really think QNX is the best out there.
-James Inrgaham
Sage Automation, Inc.
there’s a PDF viewer called “xpdf” either on the QNX .iso or the third party cd, i do not remember. it is good enough for “home” use, for business purposes go see for yourself.
some minor problems have been discussed in the forums, search for “xpdf”.
good luck ! Helge
WhiteRabbits said: “there’s a PDF viewer called “xpdf”…”
Yeah, I’ve done xpdf. First of it, it’s not Photon native, so you have to have X installed and run XPhoton. This takes up lots of hard drive space and is slow as molasses. Since it’s X, not Photon, it can’t be embedded into an application, it can’t be controlled from a Photon app, and did I mention it’s really slow? And as you noted, it’s pretty far behind the times in terms of PDF functionality.
To make this address the thread a little closer, porting software to QNX is not just about having another desktop OS. I need a PDF viewer (and a CAD viewer) for my embedded system, even though QSSL seems to think that’s a bizarre idea. You probably don’t need AbiWord in your car navigation system, but then again there may be some specific application in which it would be useful. Adding notes to stored destinations, perhaps?
-James Ingraham
Sage Automation, Inc.
There is a port of XPDF 3.0 to QNX (Xphoton), which is much faster than the version on the 3rd party repository. And it seems more stable, too. I don’t know the link, but I have the qpr. Send me a PM if you are interested.
My 1-year license for QNX 6.3 will be expired soon, so QOpenCD will be dropped too as 3rd party CD.
Sorry guys, that’s life…
Then get a new license dude!
Where ? For free ? That’s impossible. When cdm left QSS we are became just lost and abandoned community. So no luck.
You should be able to use QNX Momentics NC indefinitely to work on a project like that. I can see not wanting to bother, but that begs the question of why you were using QNX in the first place. If you need it for work, you need the license. If you’re doing it for fun you can use NC. What am I missing?
-James Ingraham
Sage Automation, Inc.