[roymurdock]

I think I see where you fit in - deeply embedded systems with real-time constraints tend to use a certified hypervisor solution to separate runtimes. Traditional IT solutions can use Linux KVM or a full Docker implementation. ResinOS fits in the middle.

Familiarity with Docker will allow makers to get multiple runtimes up and running on higher-end (but small) SoCs...but for what type of applications?

[alexandros]

There are a lot of companies looking at the intersection of containers and embedded. Some call it "Fog Computing" others "Edge Computing", others still "Industrial Internet" and so forth. We have a number of use cases on the resin.io website of people using this technology in production today, but some of the larger ones we're not allowed to talk about :(. ResinOS does include a full Docker engine however. It's just that a lot more is needed to do containers right on embedded Linux devices.

[pjmlp]

Would that include high integrity like support? Just curious.

[creshal]

There's a lot of devices that need to run unsupervised, but still have (relatively) beefy hardware and commodity software. Digital signage stations are one example, some customers want a (relatively modern) Webkit/Blink based browser based system so they can deploy React/Angular/etc based applications on it instead of needing to hire people who know Qt Embedded or similar. The overhead doesn't really matter for such applications: The backlight for a 40+ inches large touchscreen will always consume more power than the other components combined, so you can put in an actively cooled 20W dual/quadcore APU just fine, and having a full OS allows running other services on it (SSH/VPN solutions for remote management, e.g.).

(Disclaimer, we've been doing exactly that since 2011. I've been wanting to move to a containerized approach for years, but our customers are happy enough with the current solution that they don't want to fund it. Alas.)