Create “open source" event, realize win-win industry future – official launch of open source "EasyXMen" Safety Vehicle Control Operation System codes

On October 24, the EasyXMen Safety Vehicle Control Operation System Open Source Conference and Joint Construction Plan Briefing was held online under the guidance of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) and hosted by iSOFT Basic Software Co., Ltd. Experts and engineers from various fields of the automobile industry gathered to celebrate the event, and representatives from major OEM groups and key supply chain enterprises sent their blessings for the official launch of the open source EasyXMen codes.

Blessings from the representative of the guiding organization

As China's first large-scale, mass-production safety vehicle control operation system open source project, EasyXMen is based on the core products of iSOFT automotive software open source, with communication, diagnosis, network management, calibration, storage and other functions. It has passed the strict test of the highest international safety level, and has been installed in more than 17 million sets of vehicles in mass production. The customer groups cover domestic mainstream large-scale vehicle enterprises, domestic and foreign parts and components enterprises, and technology and Internet enterprises. It is mainly applied to various types of controllers in vehicle body, power, chassis, autonomous driving and smart cockpit domain, and it is a mature product with a wealth of mass-production demos. The official launch of EasyXMen open source codes marks a new journey in the development and innovation of underlying software technology in China's automotive industry.

Addressing multiple challenges and advancing "open source" is imperative

From the mechanical era, the electronic era to the intelligent era, a new wave of automotive technology change surges; due to the rapid development of automotive electronic systems, the automotive software and automotive operation system are becoming increasingly important. Safe and controllable automotive operation systems have become the core elements of the new technology ecosystem. Domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers have elevated the research and development and the application of automotive operation system to the strategic high level of enterprise development, and regarded it as the key driving force to promote automobile intelligence.

In the era of intelligent vehicles, OEMs need to manage multiple product lines, cope with diverse technical solutions, and deal with the complex arrangement and combination of many chips, thereby facing unprecedentedly complex challenges. This not only intensifies the difficulty of chip adaptation, software integration and testing, operation system configuration, etc., but also significantly increases the technical risk, especially in the process of multi-platform migration. Under the current environment of fierce competition in the industry, OEMs are in urgent need of fully compatible and standardized OS products to improve development efficiency and reduce R&D costs.

Operation system (OS) is a huge system engineering. Its development features high difficulty, long cycle, high cost, slow ecological construction, and requires long-term investment and continuous iteration. For the new requirements of the era of intelligent vehicles, the development of automotive operation systems also faces three major challenges: First, due to the continuous updating of user needs, continuous optimization of solutions, continuous development of hardware platforms, and continuous introduction of innovative technologies, how can automotive operation systems accelerate the speed of innovation and technology iteration? Second, in the process of the development of intelligent vehicles, how can automotive operation systems balance new technologies and safety requirements, rapid iteration of research and development, and software quality system requirements? Third, in the highly competitive industry environment, how can automotive operation systems be fully compatible and standardized in the face of the demands of OEMs?

As the crystallization of human wisdom in the era of information technology, “open source” creates a new ecological environment of openness, co-construction, sharing and co-governance for technological progress and industrial development.

ZHANG Xiaoxian, President of iSOFT Institute for Basic Software Strategy and Director of Open Source Office

ZHANG Xiaoxian, President of iSOFT Institute for Basic Software Strategy and Director of Open Source Office, said that open source is an innovative model to optimize the allocation of software development factors, which breaks the traditional closed software development barriers and allows developers around the world to participate in the creation and coding of software. On the one hand, open source changes the exclusivity and exclusion of the traditional business model, turns the zero-sum game into win-win collaboration. On the other hand, open source breaks through the boundaries of the organization, thereby greatly improving the economies of scale. From the code contribution, the number of submissions, the number of collaborative developers and the number of files and other data, the open source software is far superior to the closed source software.

"Open source software has become the mainstream model of basic software, which drives the vast majority of technological innovation." LUO Lei, a professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) and director of the Embedded Software Engineering Center, pointed out that the open source software movement has become increasingly significant in its ability to drive innovation, and has become an enabler of digital change in society. The open source development model enables THE open source project to become a vibrant and innovative development ecosystem. For the automotive industry, open source can save more time and cost for the rapid development of smart connected cars, thus bringing more advanced technology and a more prosperous ecology. In view of the current problems faced by the smart connected car industry, open source is an innovative mode to break the R&D cost pressure, R&D efficiency challenges, and the demand for autonomy and control in the automotive industry.

ZHANG Xiaoxian pointed out that the open source automotive operation system will bring multiple advantages for enterprises, such as resource sharing, R&D synergy and cost optimization, and help automotive enterprises to enhance their platform strategy and R&D efficiency.

Through sharing and building with the whole industry, EasyXMen open source codes are officially launched.

EasyXMen was born out of the expectations of all parties in the industry.

EasyXMen, as the first open-source mass-produced automotive operation system, aims to build an open-source safety vehicle control operation system through open-source co-construction and industry co-creation and sharing.

According to reports, the EasyXMen open source project was jointly announced and launched by the OpenAtom Foundation, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, and iSOFT Basic Software, together with more than 10 vehicle and chip companies including China FAW, Dongfeng Motor, and Chang’an Auto. It is China's first large-scale, mass-production-level, open source safety vehicle control operation system project, with multiple advantages such as high safety design, real-time and high performance, compatibility and extensibility, large-scale and mass-production-level capabilities, ecosystem support, and autonomous driving environment applications.

ZHANG Xiaoxian said, as the result of iSOFT 16 years of deep cultivation in automotive operation system, EasyXMen V24.10 launched this time has the functions of communication, diagnosis, network management, calibration, storage, etc., with a total of 688 files and 403,976 lines of codes. It has passed the strict test of the highest international security level, and is a mature product with abundant mass production cases. The EasyXMen Safety Vehicle Control Operation System is open for source codes of the full function protocol stacks, and also provides a free toolchain installation package, a chip-based runnable demo project, and related manual documentation, so that users can get started faster.

EasyXMen V24.10 is launched under the LGPL2.1 protocol license, with exception clauses to ensure a wider range of usage scenarios. OEMs, supply chain enterprises or individuals can use it on the basis of complying with the open source license agreement, modify and optimize the EasyXMen codes according to their own needs, use EasyXMen for pre-research and mass production, or build enterprise release version and build their own business around EasyXMen. Contributors can sign a CLA agreement to specify their contribution authorization.

It is reported that the current open source EasyXMen project is hosted on the Atomgit platform under the OpenAtom Foundation. You scan the QR code below to download the open source codes, apply for access to free development toolchain to achieve the function stack model configuration and code generation.

（Click the link to download EasyXMen V24.10）

（Click the link to join the EasyXMen community）

Through co-creation, co-construction, sharing and co-governance, representatives of various parties provide support for EasyXMen.

At the launch conference, many EasyXMen partners from OEMs, supply chain companies, universities and research institutes expressed their expectations and good wishes for the open source launch and called for more enterprises to participate.

LI Bo, Assistant Secretary General and Director of Operation Department of Open Atom Foundation

LI Bo, Assistant Secretary General and Director of Operation Department of OpenAtom Foundation, said that EasyXMen Safety Vehicle Control Operation System had high technical value and ecological value. The open source of EasyXMen project reveals a high degree of recognition of open source culture, a firm confidence in open source mode, and an in-depth exploration of technical collaboration and innovation.

JING Zhe, Representative of AUTOSAR China and Director of Technology Strategy of Bosch China

JING Zhe, representative of AUTOSAR China and Director of Technology Strategy of Bosch China, said that the AUTOSAR organization actively would support the open strategy and promote the realization of software-defined vehicles with more industry partners, and expected more friends to participate in the development of standards and open source co-construction.

GUO Ren, a senior technical expert at Alibaba DAMO Academy for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook, made a professional sharing with "RISC-V boosts EasyXMen open source innovation". GUO Ren said that the RVA(B) Profiles standard was the cornerstone of building an open source software ecosystem, which was important for safety vehicle control operation systems in terms of improving system stability and reliability, enhancing data security and privacy protection, and improving functional security. Following the RISC-VSBI standard, EasyXMen Safety Vehicle Control Operation System seamlessly connects to embedded virtualization application scenarios, with stronger adaptability, which will boost automobile enterprises' platform strategy, enhance R&D efficiency, promote technological innovation, improve software quality, and make automobile software development simple.

As a representative of key partner companies, ZHU Hua, MCU market expert of Renesas Electronics Corporation, shared his insights on the topic of "Software-Defined Vehicle - Renesas Electronics Enabling the Development of Future High-Performance Automotive Electrical and Electronic Architecture". ZHU Hua elaborated on Renesas' forward-looking thinking on the software-defined automotive megatrend and future electrical and electronic architectures, introduced Renesas' new-generation U2xMCU product features and roadmap, and called for more enterprises to participate in the project and expected the early blossoming of the EasyXMen community as soon as possible.

GAO Lei, system and application technology director of automotive microprocessor department of NXP Semiconductors, shared NXP's thinking and practice around the automotive microprocessor hardware and software integration. GAO Lei introduced a complete set of automotive processor product portfolio and S32CoreRide software platform provided by NXP to promote SDV. By elaborating on the changes in the automotive industry and the importance of hardware and software integration, he believed that EasyXMen open source can provide innovative power for the automotive processor chip software ecosystem. At the same time, he called for more ecological partners to participate in the open source co-construction, and jointly contribute to the R&D and iteration of energy and smart applications.

Representatives of OEMs and supply chain enterprises have also expressed their recognition of EasyXMen and their expectation for its launch: they hope to realize industrial autonomy and control and enterprise cost optimization through open source, and to accelerate the development of application ecology and collaborative innovation in the industry through openness. Through the launch of open source EasyXMen codes, it will enhance the development capability of independent automotive safe operation system, promote technological innovation, improve software quality, jointly promote the forward development of automotive software technology, and create a better future of open source ecology.

“EasyXMen is the first large-scale and mass production-level open-source safety vehicle control operation system in China, and is the result of the unity and collaboration of China's automotive industry.” YANG Zhongping, Deputy Secretary General of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), expressed his hope that enterprises in the industrial ecosystem could actively invest in, build and share with each other, and jointly support CAAM China Vehicle Operation System Open Source Co-construction Program, thereby contributing to the high-quality development of the automotive industry.