Posts by JohnAtQNX

QNX 8 goes freeware – for non-commercial use

Re: Blackberry Playbook

I worked on the PlayBook! My favorite part was how it was the perfect size to slide into the back pocket of my jeans. (At least until you got into the car and accidentally invented a foldable!) That and the browser -- at that time, a pretty solid browser opened the door to a lot of tinkering projects, which I certainly took advantage off. All my web tools at the time all worked perfectly on the PB.

Re: Flop

Not-anonymous John at QNX here!

This past week I've been speaking with young engineers who want QNX on their resume but don't know how to get there. This is huge for them -- they can now download the full QNX SDP, port content and develop some projects, then show their QNX familiarity on their CVs.

BUT! I want to make sure we're not missing the bigger picture and perhaps the bigger point: companies who are prototyping new ideas and new products can use these licenses to do that prototyping cost-free before they pivot to commercialization. No more prototyping on other systems before implementing code on the QNX platform -- just do it all on QNX from the start. This is a huge time and cost saver for organizations working with QNX, and opens a free path to those orgs evaluating QNX for their prototypes.

Re: Registration required

> If I could just download an image that I could run in a VM or on a Raspberry Pi I might port some of my open source software libraries to it. If I have to jump through hoops, then why bother?

We're working on it! It's hard to change big systems built for B2B overnight, but it's a core goal for the team. In a perfect world you can just hit a download button and get the image for Pi/VM/cloud/etc and be on your way. And perhaps included as built-in option in the Pi Imager utility!

For now though, we need a registration. It's a quick email verification loop and everything is auto-approved -- no need to "talk to QNX" (though I'd love to shoot the breeze about projects and porting any time!) Your account allows you to get the host-side SDP (w/ toolchain), which you'll need for developing and porting anyway. Hope this helps!