ChorusOS
| Company type | Private (startup) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software, Operating systems |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Fate | Acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1997 |
| Successor | Jaluna (later VirtualLogix) |
| Headquarters | France |
ChorusOS is a microkernel real-time operating system that operates on a message passing architecture. Its origins trace back to the Chorus distributed operating system research initiative at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, Chorus was among the pioneering microkernels, commercially developed by the startup company Chorus Systèmes SA. Initially targeting distributed systems, its application later evolved towards real-time solutions for embedded system environments.
In 1997, Sun Microsystems acquired Chorus Systèmes to integrate its microkernel technology into the creation of JavaOS. Support for ChorusOS was eventually discontinued by Sun and subsequently Oracle. The original creators of Chorus Systèmes established Jaluna in 2002, which later became VirtualLogix and was purchased by Red Bend in 2010. VirtualLogix specialized in embedded system development utilizing Linux and ChorusOS (branded as VirtualLogix C5), promoting C5 as a carrier-grade operating system under active maintenance.
The most recent release of ChorusOS version 5.0 source code was made available as open-source software by Sun through the Sun Download Center. Building upon this, the Jaluna project introduced Jaluna-1—a real-time Portable Operating System Interface (RT-POSIX) layer derived from FreeBSD 4.1—and the CDE cross-platform development environment. ChorusOS is compatible with popular SSL/TLS libraries, including wolfSSL.