Wind River Systems announced that Boeing has selected Wind River Platform for Network Equipment, Linux Edition, a Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) run-time, which includes Wind River Workbench, the company’s Eclipse-based development suite, for the P-8A Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) mission system. This expansion of Wind River Linux into the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry demonstrates the company’s continued position as the leading DSO provider to A&D.

The P-8A is a long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft. It possesses an advanced mission system for maximum interoperability in battle space. Capable of broad-area, maritime, and littoral operations, the P-8A is expected to improve training, deployment, and operation of the U.S. Navy's maritime patrol and reconnaissance forces. The U.S. Navy plans to purchase 108 P-8As to replace its fleet of P-3 aircraft and expects initial operational capability in 2013. As part of an extensive evaluation process, Boeing considered several commercial Linux solutions for its advanced mission system before ultimately selecting Wind River’s open-source solution based on a commercial-grade quality Carrier Grade Linux distribution.

Key was complete visibility into the Linux build. To that end, Wind River’s Linux platform starts with the pristine, unmodified 2.6 kernel downloadable from kernel.org. It ships with complete source code, just as it's delivered in the open-source world. Wind River’s build methodology enables customers to customize and add differentiating value to their Linux build without ever losing sight of the clear path back to this pristine source. Boeing can, therefore, confidently build unique, competitive products while also maintaining their citizenship in the open-source community.

The deal also includes Wind River Workbench, the company’s device software development suite, on which Boeing has standardized for the U.S. Army's Future Combat System program. Wind River Workbench addresses the challenges individual developers and project teams face by increasing productivity, enabling collaboration between hardware and software developers, and meeting diverse development needs across an enterprise.

Workbench offers an open, unifying, Eclipse-based framework that provides seamless integration of third-party tools developed to meet specific needs and also supports multiple target operating systems, including VxWorks 6, VxWorks 653, VxWorks MILS, VxWorks 5.5, Linux, and third party / proprietary operating systems such as Express Logic's ThreadX. Wind River also offers a variety of independent tools to assist device software developers from hardware bring-up to application development, enabling increased productivity and on-time, high-quality project delivery.

“Wind River is emerging as the go-to vendor for commercial Linux in the intensely-competitive and standards-driven A&D industry,” said Chip Downing, senior aerospace and defense marketing manager at Wind River. “The P-8A program will now have a commercial-grade quality Carrier Grade Linux distribution, delivered and supported by the largest DSO provider - Wind River. Our solution will also provide the program with the industry-leading open, extensible Wind River Workbench development suite, integrated and validated run-time technologies, as well as the most proven and reliable partner in this application space.”