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Is the Agenda VR3 Linux PDA Dead?

Posted by timothy on from the he'll-be-stone-dead-in-a-moment dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "LinuxDevices.com has published a news item about the uncertain future of Agenda Computing and their VR3 linux PDA. According to the article, some members of the Agenda developer community are continuing work on current projects, but many have switched to other projects such as the Sharp Zaurus. Apparently there is an Agenda Germany office which is still shipping the VR3s (including to the U.S.) and which has said that they are continuing VR3 development -- but's not clear whether that means software or device development. Looks like another cool linux device has bitten the dust. Sigh."

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Linux by tsa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't know. Do you have to buy a device because it runs Linux? Maybe there are better OS-es for PDA's.

    --

    -- Cheers!

  2. Re:Oh well, a lesson learned by Peter+Harris · · Score: 4, Insightful
    You know, he could have been referring to Freedom rather than sale price...

    Good reasons for using a free OS on a hand-held are going to include:

    • Freedom from proprietary content-control mechanisms. If these are built into non-open hardware drivers you're fucked. You might as well not buy the device in that case.
    • Weird hardware hacks that the designers didn't anticipate e.g. interface to Lego Mindstorms GPS-targeted siege engine ;). Again, you need free access to low-level drivers.
    So maybe no ranting required.
    --

    -- What do you need?
    -- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
  3. forget the Sharp Zaurus by markj02 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I have developed software for the VR3. It's a nice little device. Because it uses standard Linux GUI software, I can now take my software and run it on several other Linux-based PDAs.

    The Sharp Zaurus only runs Qt/Embedded. It will not share the screen with any other toolkit, and if I develop for Qt, I may end up having to pay steep licensing fees. Thanks, but no thanks. The point of Linux is that software is compatible among different Linux machines/devices and that I'm not forced to use just the software that some hardware vendor decided to impose on me.