Open Source Won’t Ruin Your Edge, It Might Be Your Edge

If you’ve been following along with our new season of Conversations at the Edge (CATE), you know we’ve been digging deep into mobile robotics. In our first five episodes, we explored why minimum viable products (MVPs) are a trap, why Raspberry Pi isn't the right tool for production and how distributed intelligence is the secret sauce for making robots safe scalable and adaptable in unpredictable environments.

Now, we shift gears. The next three episodes of season two zoom in on a topic every robotics developer has wrestled with: open source. Whether you’ve cursed it, praised it, or both in the same breath, open source is shaping how we design, scale, and secure mobile robots. So, let’s break down what we covered in this new segment and what it really means for developers.

Episode 6: Open Source is Gonna Kill My…

We opened the discussion with a common fear: if I embrace open source, am I giving away my competitive edge? Will my intellectual property (IP) leak into the wild, only to be reused by competitors?

The truth is, modern open source projects rely on permissive licenses. This means you control what’s shared and what stays private. At NXP, we live this balance every day. Our chips include specialized IP blocks that require proprietary drivers, but we also contribute to community code where it accelerates adoption and strengthens the ecosystem.

For developers, this is freedom, as they use open source and skip the “reinventing the wheel.” For example, the drivers for common sensors or connectivity stack resources are readily available in open source. You can keep your differentiation in the layers that matter, whether it’s proprietary algorithms, unique hardware integrations or vertical-specific applications. Looking at the big picture, you gain not just speed but robustness, because your code benefits from more collaboration, more testing and more compatibility with existing frameworks.

Episode 7: Open Source Means Less Secure

Another myth we had to bust is that open source is “less secure.” When you’re building mobile robots that inspect factories, navigate hospitals or venture into nuclear power plants, security just isn't optional.

Here’s the reality: open source can actually improve security. Large communities mean more eyes on the code, which means finding and fixing vulnerabilities happens more frequently compared to closed environments. Pair this with security best practices at the hardware and system level, and you’ve got a stronger foundation.

At NXP, our reference platforms for robotics ship with secure elements alongside the main processor. This gives each board unique certificates for authentication, anti-counterfeiting and user verification. On top of that, developers still must meet tough standards like IEC 62443 and Europe’s Cyber Resiliency Act, and open source software doesn’t stop you from doing so.

Episode 8: Making Embedded Life Better for Linux Snobs Everywhere

Finally, we approach to a developer reality that really resonates with me. Many of us cut our teeth on Linux, so moving into embedded development can feel like a rude awakening—different tools, different constraints and a different mindset. But what if it doesn’t have to be?

In this episode, we explore how modern real-time operating systems (RTOS), such as Zephyr and NuttX, make embedded life friendlier to Linux-native developers. Both are POSIX-compliant, which means their shells and commands look and feel familiar. Want to SSH into a battery management system running NuttX? You’ll feel right at home. Need to bring Cognitive Pilot model predictive control software over from one board to another? If both run Zephyr, the portability is seamless.

It’s more than comfort, though. With this portability and scalability you can architect your platform once and scale it across SKUs to save development time and enable your designs to adapt new capabilities once deployed. Add in the open source community constantly contributing drivers and features, and suddenly, embedded development doesn’t feel so foreign.

What’s Next

If there is one common thread that ties it all together, it’s that open source isn’t a liability, it’s a multiplier. It delivers compatibility, scalability and even security, as long as you pair it with the right hardware and safety practices.

Our discussion of mobile robotics isn't over yet. In our next segment, we’ll bring in a special guest who will dive into advances in sensor fusion and vision, and how the two technologies are redefining robot perception and environmental interaction.

Until then, catch up on all the episodes on nxp.com or on our YouTube channel, and stay tuned for more Conversations at the Edge!