RTEMS 4.5.0 On-Line Library

Where/why was it developed?

RTEMS Frequently Asked Questions

1.6: Where/why was it developed?

RTEMS was developed by On-Line Applications Research Corporation (OAR) for the U.S. Army Missile Command prior to that organizations merger with the Aviation Command that resulted in the new command, U. S. Army Aviation and Missile command (AMCOM). The original goal of RTEMS was to provide a portable, standards-based real-time executive for which source code was available and royalties were paid.

In other words, RTEMS was open source before open source was cool.

RTEMS Frequently Asked Questions