Why Open Source Makes Sense For Handhelds

Guylhem writes "Are you still wondering why you should prefer an handheld running free software over one running Palm OS or Windows CE? Here's a short article to explain the main reasons you should consider. The most important are sustainability and freedom: you don't want your applications to break when you update your handheld OS or hardware, and you certainly want to decide what *you* may do with your data. Palm and Pocket PC's DRM protected and obscure formats stand in your way. That's another good reason to prefer free software: you have the source code so you can develop plug ins to read such obscure formats. Even better - you can stick to standards formats such as divx which are poorly supported on handhelds running proprietary software." On the topic of handhelds, tanmay submits brighthand.com's small chart of some upcoming handhelds and smart phones that may be launched in the coming months.

Comments

Considerations

[NixLuver]

I've owned a Zaurus SL5500 and innumerable (ok, well, 5, actuallly) palm based PDAs. Recently, I purchased a Palm Tungsten E.

The Zaurus was an amazing critter; but most of its value was in pure Geek Factor. In Windows or in Linux, the Zaurus was interesting but plagued by ongoing random minor issues with synchronization, what version of QPE I was using, what the date was, and how I held my mouth. In Windows or in Linux, the Palm is nearly effortless.

The Zaurus had many neat things. I could log in to it over the network (wireless); I could run a webserver on it; I could do all kinds of system things. But in the end, the actual D of the PDA is much more usable in the Palm. I'd love to have the time and the money to develop replacements for the Palm software to run on the Zaurus, but I simply don't; I need something that works, and works well, right now.

Not to mention the fact that, comparitively, the Zaurus is enormous. It's easily half again as heavy, and an inch longer, and a little thicker, than the tungsten E.

If you go with the commercial QPE (that synchronizes well) functionality is low; if you go with the free embedded GUIs, functionality is high, but interoperability (in the form of synchronization with outlook and evolution) is low. Even with all the objections fielded in this discussion, the Palm is like a Sound Blaster - it just works.

And it's sad, too. I love Linux, I love free software, I love the entire Opensource movement, and I wanted to be much more pleased with the Zaurus. I would say, all in all, PDA linux is where desktop linux was at RedHat 5.2. It will get there, eventually.