DoCoMo To Use Linux On Their 3G phones

ilbrec writes "Looks like NTT DoCoMo will be using Linux on their 3G phones next year. This actually was reported yesterday in Japan (here), but I could not find any article in English until now. While it's not clear who will be making the Linux phone for them, I would certainly be interested in seeing them once they are out. No word on this anywhere at DoCoMo's website at all, however." Reader paku adds links to similar coverage in Forbes and in Japan Today.

Comments

GPL

[h4rm0ny]

How does this work as far as distributing the source code? Is that available for modification and if so is it possible to upload a self-improved OS to the phone?

Does that open up the possibility of doing clever things or am I being ignorant? If the former then this could be great, if the latter - hey, I only wrote telecommns code for two years, what do you expect?

Will there ever be a standard?

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

We all know Microsoft is trying to be the "standard" for cell-phone operating systems much in the way that they took over almost the entire desktop and workplace market, but will there ever be a Linux standard? I know Symbian is also trying to create a standard for cell phones that already is quite strong in Europe, but there really should be a consortium where Linux developers can get together and set standards, instead of them being scattered across the internet proposing a few ideas.

If there's going to be standards, they should always be open source and free as in beer. Corporate control of standards only creates monopolies. Even in America, a lot of people are dropping their landlines for cellphones, and if there's ever a Linux standard for it, it should be created quickly before it's too late.

Re:Well, it's an option anyway.

[tftp]

The engineers decided on Linux, but the PHBs don't want to take risks (correctly, by the way.) So they, in their usual manner, tell us something while telling us nothing, and not committing to anything.

But seriously, Linux is great on embedded systems. I am right now working with Arcom's PC/104 board that has XScale CPU on it. I left the board plugged in for several months, and when I checked it was still working fine :-) It's Debian, btw, and takes only 8 MB Flash (other 8 MB are free, and I have larger CompactFlash plugged in as /dev/hda for development).

Probably will be modded a troll, but...

[mental_telepathy]

I mean this seriously. Would a good sign of Linux becoming more mainstream be when it's no longer news that a company is using Linux in their products?

Re:Phones and operating systems

[aug24]

Cos you can rip out what you don't need and add what you do fairly easily.

For example, all the userland stuff can go - just cos it'll have a user doesn't mean it needs to use the existing, highly secure multi-user stuff.

The multi-task stuff may well be of use, as phones are not RTE any more. The chips almost certainly are still, but certainly not the front end.

Justin.