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Feb 13

ELISA Project and Linux Foundation Community Shine at FOSDEM 2025

By Ambassadors, Blog, Critical Software Summit, Industry Conference

Written by Ramon Roche, Dronecode Foundation General Manager and member of Space Grade Linux

Members and collaborators from the ELISA Project and the broader Linux Foundation community were excited to participate in FOSDEM 2025, joining thousands of open source enthusiasts in Brussels for a weekend dedicated to advancing open technology. For those who haven’t yet experienced FOSDEM, it’s difficult to put into words the vibrant, inclusive atmosphere of this registration-free event—it’s something you genuinely have to see and feel for yourself. Imagine developers buzzing between the historic buildings of the Université libre de Bruxelles, eagerly attending talks, sharing ideas, and forging connections over their shared passion for innovation. FOSDEM is more than just a conference; it’s a celebration of open-source collaboration and a testament to the power of community-driven technology.

“FOSDEM is more than just a conference—it’s a cornerstone of the open source world. From discovering new projects in various fields like open source scorecards and NGO-focused CRMs to engaging in critical discussions around the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act, FOSDEM offers unmatched opportunities for learning and collaboration. The hallway track, packed sessions, and the growing interest in AI and open hardware all underscore its role as a vital hub for innovation and community building. It’s where the open source ecosystem thrives, connects, and evolves.”

— Philipp Ahmann, Sr. OSS Community Manager at ETAS GmbH

Exhibits from Sponsors

One of the highlights of FOSDEM 2025 was the lively exhibit area, where attendees flocked to engage with some of the most influential projects and foundations in the open-source ecosystem. The halls were abuzz with energy, making it nearly impossible to walk through without getting swept up in the excitement! Zephyr RTOS had a standout presence among the many exhibits, drawing attention with its innovative real-time operating system solutions. Members of the ELISA community were also actively involved throughout the exhibits, connecting with attendees and sharing insights on safety-critical systems and open-source collaboration.

The FOSDEM community’s love for swag was on full display, with attendees proudly sporting T-shirts, stickers, and other goodies collected from various booths. A major crowd favorite was the Linux Foundation Europe booth, which attracted a steady stream of visitors with its impressive lineup of CNCF project merchandise and exclusive discounts on Linux Foundation training and certifications available only to FOSDEM attendees. The vibrant atmosphere and enthusiasm around the exhibits perfectly captured the spirit of innovation and community that defines FOSDEM.

 

 

Kate Stewart’s Zephyr Open Source Project Best Practices Over Time Presentation

Another highlight of FOSDEM 2025 was Kate Stewart’s talk titled Zephyr: Open Source Project Best Practices Over Time, where she shared insights into how Zephyr RTOS has evolved into a robust and widely adopted platform, now surpassing 100,000 commits in its main repository. Drawing on lessons from the Linux Kernel Community, she emphasized the importance of embedding best practices early on to ensure long-term sustainability and scalability. A key focus of her leadership has been security, which was integrated from the start rather than treated as an afterthought. With Zephyr advancing toward formal safety certification, Stewart’s vision continues to drive the project forward, solidifying its position as a trusted solution for embedded systems and safety-critical applications. Her meticulous attention to governance, security, and collaboration has been instrumental in taking Zephyr to new heights.

Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) devroom

The SBOM devroom at FOSDEM 2025 was a focal point for discussions on the growing importance of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) in ensuring transparency and security across the open-source ecosystem. A standout session was Luigi Pellecchia’s talk on BASIL, an innovative open-source tool designed to simplify the creation and maintenance of traceability matrices for safety-critical applications. Pellecchia demonstrated how BASIL leverages the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) standard to integrate quality-related work items into SBOMs, enhancing consistency and reliability across complex toolchains. His presentation highlighted the critical role of SBOMs in fostering trust and compliance, making it clear that tools like BASIL are essential for modern software development workflows. The devroom’s sessions collectively underscored the value of SBOMs in building secure and sustainable software supply chains.

Embedded, Mobile, and Automotive devroom

The Embedded, Mobile, and Automotive devroom at FOSDEM 2025 was a hub of innovation, bringing together a vibrant community of developers and enthusiasts to explore the latest in open-source technologies. The program was packed with engaging talks, covering everything from CubeSat communication systems and general-purpose humanoid robotics with dora-rs to dual A/B update solutions for embedded Linux. Standout sessions included Thibault Poncelet’s deep dive into automotive communication systems with Reverse Engineering CAN Communication and Building ECUs Using Elixir and the BEAM, and Florian Limberger’s exploration of Bluetooth Low Energy applications in Developing BLE Host Applications with Zephyr. Attendees also got a closer look at the integration of MicroPython in embedded systems and enjoyed a lively update on the Zephyr RTOS during its dedicated roasting party. With a full house for nearly every session, the devroom highlighted the rapid advancements in embedded technologies and the critical role of open-source collaboration in shaping the future of the industry.

“FOSDEM is one of the most important open-source gatherings in the world, and this year was no exception,” said Walt Miner, AGL Community Manager at the Linux Foundation, devroom co-chair.  “I came to host the Embedded, Mobile, and Automotive devroom, as well as the Automotive BoF, but it’s also the best place to connect with a wide variety of experts across countless projects. What makes FOSDEM so special is its diversity—it’s not tied to a single project or technology, and every year brings new devrooms and discoveries. This year, I was excited to learn more about OpenPilot and meet some of the people using it.”

Miner continued, “In the Embedded, Mobile, and Automotive devroom, Zephyr was a recurring theme, with so many great talks that we could easily justify a dedicated Zephyr devroom next year. The devroom was a huge success—our 210-seat room was packed for every session, and we had three times more talk submissions than we could accommodate. It’s inspiring to see such enthusiasm and expertise in the community, and I’m already looking forward to next year!”

“Expect the unexpected. At FOSDEM, you have the opportunity to see new topics and trends.”

– Jan-Simon Moeller

Featured Talks you should check out:

BASIL an open source tool that supports requirements traceability with design sBOM

Zephyr: Open Source Project Best Practices Over Time

Dec 17

Safe Systems with Linux (Video)

By Ambassadors, Blog, Industry Conference, Linux Foundation

As Linux is increasingly deployed in systems with varying criticality constraints, distro providers are expected to ensure that security fixes in their offerings do not introduce regressions for customer products that have safety considerations. The key question arises:

  • How can they establish consistent linkage between code, tests, and the requirements that the code satisfies?
  • Which open source tools and specifically for Linux exist to support traceability in order to comply with standards such as ASPICE, ISO26262 or ISO21434?

This video from Open Source Summit Japan – presented by Philipp Ahmann, Sr. OSS Community Manager, Etas GmbH; and Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation – addresses critical challenges in requirements tracking, documentation, testing, and artifact sharing within the Linux kernel ecosystem. Functionality has historically been added to the kernel with requirements explained in the email justifications for adding, but not formalized as “requirements” in the kernel documentation. While tests are contributed for the code, the underlying requirement that the tests satisfies is likewise not documented in a consistent manner. This and further topics will be discussed. Additionally, the results from the “Safe Systems with Linux” micro conference at Linux plumbers will be summarized.

 

You can watch more ELISA-related talks on the Open Source Summit Japan Playlist on the ELISA Youtube Channel.

Oct 30

A recap of Open Source Summit Europe (Vienna)

By Blog, Industry Conference

Written By Will Stonier, Content Marketing Executive at Codethink and Paul Albertella, ELISA Project TSC member, Chair for Open Source Engineering Process Working Group and Consultant at Codethink

This blog originally ran on the Codethink website. For more content like this, click here. 

Vienna hosted this year’s European Open Source Summit (OSSEU). Several team members travelled to the ‘City of Music’ to participate in talks and discussions, eat traditional Austrian food, and discuss the future of open source and Linux. The venue was the Austria Center, located in the city’s North East.

OSSEU is one of the bigger events in the open source calendar, with thousands of attendees and a wide array of talks and vendor stands. Moreover, there is a growing number of micro-conferences focussing on topics and domains under the open source umbrella.

Two Codethings presented at OSSEU. Ben Dook’s talk, ‘Real-time Scheduling Fault Simulation,’ examined some methods Codethink has used for fault injection via both user and kernel space in our client work. As part of our work within critical safety, questions frequently arise on how to test processes that rely on real-time scheduling.

Sudip Mukherjee’s talk, ‘Testing, a Journey from Testing Kernels to Testing Debian and Yocto,’ focused on how Sudip started testing the Linux Kernel in a personal capacity and the status of kernel testing as part of his role at Codet hink. You can watch Sudip’s talk here:

 

However, the conference had something for everyone. For those of the team who focus on open source software in safety and security systems, there was the Critical Software Summit on the first day, and relevant talks on the Embedded Linux track, including one on ‘Linux in Space’ and another on spatial safety in Linux (two very different topics!).

The conference also provided an excellent opportunity for team members to explore Linux kernel topics more deeply. Paul Albertella noted that a talk about power management features was especially helpful, as it drew his attention to the power management of individual devices at runtime as distinct from the system as a whole, helping him navigate tricky nuances of his own laptop!

Here’s what Joshua Zivkovic had to say about Open Source Summit Europe:

“Linux Foundation events, like Open Source Summit EU, provide a way for every corner of the open source world to come together to share innovations, expertise, and experiences amongst the endless number of microcosms of open source.”

Finally, the conference caught the headlines (and caused chatter in the Codethink office) with the announcement that real-time Linux is now officially part of the kernel. This is exciting news, and we’ll be watching how this progresses.

We’ll see you next year!

If you’d like to learn more about the events Codethink attends, please visit our events page.

Related content:

Jul 17

The ELISA Project – Enabling Open Source in Safety-Critical Applications

By Blog, Industry Conference, Safety-Critical Software Summit

Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS) is an umbrella event for open source embedded projects and developer communities to come together under one roof for important collaboration, discussions and education.  The event is composed of different  micro conferences including Embedded Linux Conference, Zephyr Developer Summit, and Safety-Critical Software Summit.

The Safety-Critical Software Summit took place under the Embedded Open Source Summit, where more than 860 individuals attended in-person at the event with 79% holding technical positions.

At the Safety Summit, Philipp Ahmann, ETAS presented on the ELISA Project, which focuses on enabling open source software in safety-critical applications. The growing need for safety integrity standards in open source projects offers both challenges and opportunities to enhance software quality, particularly in testing, documentation, robustness, and dependability. ELISA aims to be a central hub for safety-critical workloads, collaborating with projects such as Xen, Zephyr, Yocto, and SPDX.

Philipp’s session began with an overview of ELISA’s goals and activities. The focus then shifted to an open discussion on elements, processes, and tools that can enhance trust in open source software for safety, paving the way towards potential certification. The session emphasized the importance of community involvement and collaboration to address the challenges and opportunities in making open source software safety-certifiable.

Key points of the presentation included the focus on various open source projects and their relationship to functional safety. For instance, the Zephyr project integrates safety from the design phase, with premium members having access to comprehensive safety documentation and testing materials. In contrast, Xen prioritizes security and industrial-grade operations, offering rigorous quality processes and strong traceability from initial commit to testing pipelines. Philipp emphasized the importance of community involvement, noting that premium members, like AMD, drive the safety certification efforts for Xen.

The ELISA project distinguishes itself by not directly delivering a “safe Linux,” but by supporting integrators and system creators in making Linux-based systems safety-certifiable. Key members include Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, Wind River, and Elektrobit, among others. ELISA focuses on creating reproducible systems with CI pipelines that cover documentation, testing, and error detection, enabling users to hook into various stages of the process.

Philipp also discussed the complexity of certifying Linux-based systems due to their inherent flexibility and configurability. He highlighted the challenges of aligning Linux with traditional safety-critical operating systems, which are typically small, fixed, and non-configurable. The presentation also covered the broader scope of ELISA’s work, which includes interactions with various standards bodies and the development of reference systems to demonstrate safety applications.

The ELISA project promotes best practices and aims to ensure that its work is accepted by the open source community. This includes contributions to the Linux kernel and related projects, as well as interactions with other initiatives like CIP and SOAFEE. He also mentioned ongoing efforts to develop use cases and practical applications, such as electric vehicle charging stations and medical devices, to better understand and address the safety needs of different industries.

In conclusion, the ELISA Project is committed to enabling the use of open source software in safety-critical applications through collaboration, comprehensive documentation, robust testing, and continuous improvement. The project seeks to engage the broader community in its efforts, recognizing that the collective expertise and contributions of its members are essential to achieving its goals. The presentation underscored the importance of open communication, shared best practices, and a commitment to safety in driving the project forward.

You can find the presentation slides here

To see all of the videos from the Summit, visit the ELISA Youtube Channel and click on the Safety-Critical Software Summit Playlist. 

 

Learn more about the ELISA Project by:

Jul 10

Xen Project’s Progress Toward Safety Certification – Stefano Stabellini, AMD

By Blog, Industry Conference, Safety-Critical Software Summit

Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS) is an umbrella event for open source embedded projects and developer communities to come together under one roof for important collaboration, discussions and education.  The event is composed of different  micro conferences including Embedded Linux Conference, Zephyr Developer Summit, and Safety-Critical Software Summit.

The Safety-Critical Software Summit took place under the Embedded Open Source Summit, where more than 860 individuals attended in-person at the event with 79% holding technical positions.

embedded open source summit 2024 - ELISA Project

At the Safety Critical Software Summit, Stefano Stabellini, AMD provided a comprehensive update on the Xen Project’s advancements toward achieving safety certification. The Xen Project is an open source, static partitioning hypervisor designed for embedded and automotive applications. It ensures strict isolation between domains, making it a prime candidate for the highest levels of safety certification, such as ISO 26262 for automotive and IEC 61508 for industrial applications.

Stefano detailed the collaborative efforts between AMD and the Xen Community, initiated in 2023, to make Xen safety-certifiable across AMD x86 and ARM architectures. Over nine months, the team has integrated 80% of the relevant MISRA C rules into Xen’s coding standards and resolved numerous MISRA C violations. The introduction of MISRA C checkers into the upstream Xen CI loop has been a critical step in maintaining code quality by preventing new violations from entering the codebase.

The talk emphasized the Xen Project’s rigorous approach to safety certification, highlighting the adoption of a flexible and adaptable MISRA C compliance strategy. This approach included deviating certain MISRA rules that were too restrictive or not entirely applicable to Xen’s mature codebase, while still leveraging MISRA’s robust guidelines to improve code safety and quality.

Stefano also discussed the development of software safety requirements, a key component of the certification process. These requirements are structured hierarchically into market requirements, product requirements, and detailed software safety requirements, each linking to specific tests and traceable through tools like OpenPASS Trace.

The presentation emphasized the importance of integrating MISRA C scanning into the continuous integration (CI) process to detect and address violations early. Additionally, it highlighted the need for using modern tools and methodologies for writing and managing safety requirements, aligning them with open-source community practices.

Stefano concluded by outlining the next steps, including the ongoing upstreaming of safety requirements and further development of the testing infrastructure. 

You can find the presentation slides here.

 

To see all of the videos from the Summit, visit the ELISA Youtube Channel and click on the Safety-Critical Software Summit Playlist. 

Learn more about the ELISA Project by:

Apr 09

ELISA Project at embedded world

By Blog, Industry Conference

The world of embedded systems is multifaceted – from hardware and software to services and tools. The embedded world Exhibition & Conference brings the entire embedded community together once a year in Nuremberg and provides a unique overview of the state-of-the-art in this versatile industry.  Last year, the conference hosted 952 exhibitors and 26,630+ visitors from all over the world. This years event, scheduled for April 9-11, is expected to be even larger.

Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA) Project will be at the event in the Collabora booth (Hall 4- booth 404) with a system demonstrator.

The ELISA System Demonstrator:

  • Heterogenous example system, fully based on Open Source, consisting of Linux, Zephyr (RTOS), and Xen (Virtualization) 
  • Represents recent SW architectures found in industries like Automotive Software Defined Vehicles and Aerospace 
  • Focus on reproducibility as blueprint for future systems 
  • Running on Xilinx Ultrascale ZCU102 and on qemu 
  • GitHub documentation & Gitlab CI 
  • Various use cases documented like device pass through of SD card and NIC, para virtualization of network and different Linux guests  
Nov 21

Putting Linux into Context – Towards a reproducible example system with Linux, Zephyr & Xen 

By Ambassadors, Blog, Industry Conference

Last week, developers from around the world traveled to Richmond, Virginia for the annual Linux Plumbers Conference. Hosted at the Omni Richmond Hotel on November 13-15, the event was mostly in-person with a live-streaming element for those who couldn’t make it.

Philipp Ahmann, Product Manager for Embedded Open Source at Robert Bosch GmbH and Chair of the ELISA Project Technical Steering Committee (TSC), was at the event and gave presentation titled, “Putting Linux into Context – Towards a Reproducible Example System with Linux, Zephyr & Xen.” You can find his presentation video and PPT  below:

 

Linux Plumbers Conference – ELISA PresentationDownload

Demos on embedded systems using Linux are plentiful, but when it comes to reproducing them, things get complicated. Additionally, on decent embedded systems Linux is only one part of the system and interacts with real-time operating systems and virtualization solutions. This makes reproduction even harder.

Within the Linux Foundation’s ELISA project, we started to create a reproducible example system consisting of Linux, Xen, and Zephyr on real hardware. This is the next step after we achieved a reproducible system with a pure Linux qemu image.

The idea is to have documentation, a continuous integration including testing, which can be picked up by developers to derive and add their own software pieces. In this way they should be able to concentrate on their use case rather than spending effort in creating such a system (unless they explicitly want this). We also show how to build everything from scratch. The assumption is that only in this way it is possible to get a system understanding to replace elements towards their specific use cases.

We had challenges finding good hardware, tools, freely available GPU drivers and more and we are still not at the end. A good system SBOM is also creating additional challenges, although leveraging the Yocto build system has provided some advantages here.

While we are setting up the first hardware with documentation from source to build to deployment and testing on embedded hardware, we aim to have at least two sets of all major system elements like Linux flavor, a choice of virtualization technique, real-time OS and hardware. Only when software elements and hardware can be exchanged, we identify clear interfaces and make a system reproducible and adoptable.

Open Questions are:

  • What will be a good next hardware to extend this PoC scope?
  • Where do open source, security, safety, and compliance come best together?
  • Which alternative real-time operating systems and virtualization should be incorporated?

For more ELISA Project updates, subscribe to @ProjectElisa or our LinkedIn page or our Youtube Channel.

 

May 31

Register for the Safety-Critical Software Summit

By Blog, Industry Conference
embedded open source summit, Prague

The Safety-Critical Software Summit, which takes place on June 27-30, 2023 in Prague, Czech Republic, as well as virtually, as part of the new Embedded Open Source Summit conference is packed with technical content.

As open source is found more and more in safety-critical applications, the need to evaluate open source software that meets safety standards has increased. This event, sponsored by the ELISA Project, gathers safety experts and open source developers to enable and advance the use of open source in safety-critical applications. Check out some of the sessions and add them to your schedule: 

The full schedule for the Safety-Critical Software Summit Schedule can be viewed here.

Our thanks to:

Diamond Sponsors: Antmicro, Google, Intel and Meta

Platinum Sponsors: Core Embedded Linux Project

Gold Sponsors: ARM , BeagleBoard, Blues, Collabora, Igalia, NXP, Yocto Project

Silver Sponsors: Analog Devices, Civil Infrastructure Platform, emlix embedded linux systems, mind, Nordic Semiconductor, seeed studio.

Bronze Sponsors: AVSystem, Doulos, Golioth, HardwareIO, Memfault, Savoir – faire Linux, Sternum, wolfSSL

Partners: 

Special registration rates are available for small businesses, hobbyists, students and virtual attendees.

Members of The Linux Foundation receive a 20 percent discount off registration and can contact events@linuxfoundation.org to request a member discount code.

Stay tuned by subscribing to the ELISA Project newsletter or connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn or mailing lists to talk with community and TSC members.

Apr 12

ELISA Project at Linaro Connect 2023

By Blog, Industry Conference

We’ve got a few more weeks to go before Linaro Connect, which takes place on April 26-28 at the Park Plaza London Riverbank in London. Once a year, engineers, developers, thought leader and software experts come together for technical sessions and hacking. Discussions focus on the future of open source software, solutions and best practices.

This year, ELISA Project is participating in the Linaro Connect 2023 event and will be presenting an update on the progress in Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA). The session, which is scheduled on Friday, April 28 from 11:20 – 11:35 am, will be presented by Philipp Ahmann, Product Manager Embedded Open Source at Bosch and Chair of the ELISA Technical Steering Committee (TSC) and Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at The Linux Foundation and Chair of the ELISA Medical Devices Working Group. Both speakers have extensive experience and knowledge in the fields of embedded systems, open-source software and safety-critical applications.

During the session, attendees will get an overview of the goals and technical strategy of the ELISA project. The presentation will cover the different work groups involved in the project, such as Linux Features for Safety-Critical Systems, Software Architecture, Open Source Engineering Process, Tool Investigation, and Code Improvement. The session will also explore how these work groups interact and contribute to the overall project.

The session will provide information on the methodologies and tools in use, existing challenges, and why the different puzzle pieces are all needed for enabling Linux in safety-critical applications. Attendees will leave the session with a better understanding of where the ELISA project stands today and what comes next. A discussion of how this work can complement other Linaro initiatives will be explored.

Learn more here.

Overall, the ELISA project’s attendance at Linaro Connect 2023 offers an intriguing chance to learn more about how the project is making Linux-based safety-critical applications possible as well as vertical use case working groups like Automotive, Medical, and Aerospace. These working groups are aimed at addressing specific challenges related to enabling Linux-based safety-critical applications in their respective domains.

If you’re attending Linaro Connect 2023, don’t miss the ELISA Project talk, especially if you’re interested in functional safety. The session will provide valuable insights into the project’s goals, strategies, challenges, and future plans.

To learn more or register for Linaro Connect, click on the main event website.

Mar 15

Join ELISA @ the Safety-Critical Software Summit in June

By Blog, Industry Conference

As open source is found more and more in safety-critical applications, the need to evaluate open source software that meets safety standards has increased. The Safety-Critical Software Summit, sponsored by the ELISA Project, will take place on June 27-30 in Prague, Czech Republic and virtually. The event gathers safety experts and open source developers to enable and advance the use of open source in safety-critical applications.

If you are new to the ELISA Project, here is what you need to know. ELISA members are defining and maintaining a common set of elements, processes and tools that can be incorporated into specific Linux-based, safety-critical systems amenable to safety certification. ELISA is also working with certification authorities and standardization bodies in multiple industries to establish how Linux can be used as a component in safety-critical systems. This is the first ever Safety-Critical Software event under the Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS).

Here is a glimpse to the Summit topics:

  • Open Source Software Interaction with Safety Standards
  • Best Practices to Work with Regulatory Authorities when using Open Source
  • Best Practices for Security Updates to Safety-critical Systems
  • Safety Engineering Applied to Open Source Projects
  • Quality Assessments based on Data from Development
  • Development of Technical Features with Safety Relevance
  • Safety Analysis Approaches and Methodology to Apply to Systems
  • Case Studies of Existing use of Linux in Safety-critical Domains

To attend, register for Embedded Open Source Summit. 1 registration gives you access to ALL events featured under the Embedded Open Source Summit umbrella. In-person and virtual registration are both available. Register here.

Together with the Embedded Open Source Summit, Safety-Critical Software Summit provides a foundation for collaboration between these embedded development communities.  The format will include presentations, BoFs, training, workshops and min-confs designed for real time problem solving and deep discussion.

To get an overview of the event, such as the important dates and the topics that will be covered, click here.

Stay tuned by subscribing to the ELISA Project newsletter or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn

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