BlackBerry's QNX Seeks "Hobbyists and Makers" with Free Non-Commercial License, Raspberry Pi Image

BlackBerry-owned QNX is looking to make its embedded operating system and related software stack more tempting to developers by offering it for free — so long as you're using it non-commercially — complete with a ready-to-run image for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer, with Raspberry Pi 5 support in the pipeline.

"QNX is changing the game for engineers and software developers, providing free access to QNX software and resources for non-commercial use," the company explains in its announcement of the move, brought to our attention by OS News. "Whether you're a hobbyist, student, or industry professional, QNX offers practical tools, training, and a growing community to support your embedded systems projects — completely for free!"

QNX, then known as QUNIX, launched way back in 1982 as a UNIX-like real-time operating system developed by Quantum Software Systems, founded by University of Waterloo students Gordon Bell and Dan Dodge. The platform enjoyed early success when it was picked as the operating system for the Unisys ICON computer. A rewrite for QNX 4 saw the release of the "Incredible 1.44MB Demo," a fully-functional QNX installation with graphical user interface, web browser and server, and even games that fit into a single bootable 3.5" floppy disk.

By the 2000s QNX was a common tool for automotive telematics systems, while in 2004 the company was acquired by Harmon International Industries — then sold in 2010 to Research In Motion, now known as BlackBerry. Attempts to launch consumer products based on the device, including the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, did not meet with success — but the company is clearly hoping it can find broader appeal outside the automotive sector by making it easier for people to experiment with the software.

The latest release of QNX, then, has been made available to all for non-commercial use — with QNX primarily targeting academic use in classrooms or for the development of training materials or QNX-compatible open-source software. It also calls out hobbyists and makers as potential users —so long as you do not have "any intent of making it a commercial product or putting the resulting software or system into production use."

As a quick-start, the company has also released a downloadable QNX image for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer. This includes the QNX Software Development Platform (SDP) 8.0, though the company states it "only demonstrates the start of what you can achieve" with more open-source examples available in the QNX GitLab repository. A Raspberry Pi 5 image is currently in development, though not yet available at the time of writing.

Those interested in trying out QNX for themselves can apply for a free non-commercial license and access to the Raspberry Pi image on the QNX Everywhere landing page.