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Psion May Look To Linux For The Next Big Thing
An anonymous reader points out this "interesting interview with Psion founder Dr David Potter. It explores the reasons why Psion sold their share in Symbian to Nokia and why Potter believes that there is good future for Linux on "compact" notebooks and the like. Guy Kewney is a very well respected commentator on technology, he's been doing for a long time and I've always found his insights to be pretty spot on.
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As long as the framebuffer/console video support worked properly this wouldn't be a bad idea. I mean to the end user, why would they care if their Unix-alike handheld had a Linux kernel or a BSD kernel?
Functionality is the key, not the license the OS is distributed under.
-Rusty
The Master (Angelo Rossitto) in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, "Not shit, energy!"
You =FUCKING= karma whore. I hope the friendly moderators will moderate your post, and your karma, into the depths of hell where it belongs.
You're lucky you live far, far away from me, or I'd be liable to kick the ever-loving SHIT out of you, you little cum guzzling prick.
Psion has real, studied experience at making handheld products. If they were to sit down with Linux and attempt to adapt it to a product appropriate for handhelds-- meaning in an APPROPRIATE USABILITY sense, not meaning in a "uhh X will start on it" sense-- the result would be an extremely valuable asset from the perspective of the Linux community.
-- Super Ugly Ultraman
Why does every damn "linux runs on $HARDWARE" screenshot have a half-naked model as the desktop background? Corporations are not looking to see if something will assist one in being a DOM (dirty old man).
Heres my take,
80's = PC Boom
90's = Internet Boom
00's = Linux/Information wants to be free Boom
It's because, Linux is not simply a matter of choosing apples vs oranges - it is actually a superior paradigm, and it can compete like one, and changes the society and the marketplace like one. It is only a metter of time.
Except for the price, the NetBook is the perfect device profile for a student. Instant on, low OS overhead (EPOC)... What was missing was the connectivity, and as the article states, a good middleware binding solution. Linux is really going to make inroads into this product category, as well as mobile devices. IMHO however, the ultimate device is going to be smaller than a handheld and slightly larger than a cell phone, and provide "desking" or terminal capabilities when the user is near a workstation. Perhaps flexible screen technology will make this type of product viable.
The combination of three factors makes this reasonably to see...
First is the £0 per unit licensing fee. A great thing for any manufacturer.
Second is that existing interfaces combine flexibility of use with a good mobile usability. Current versions of Qtopia rival Palm's interface and are miles ahead of PocketPC on ease of use, whilst they have a parity of features with PocketPC and are miles ahead of Palm. The API they have is unbeatable for pocket devices.
Thirdly is that Linux is fairly well suited to low power environments already, with a fair bit of work done in the embedded space. It already runs on PPC and ARM chips for example.
Sure, the PIM apps are at best basic (although adequate for me) - but Palm knows how PIM apps work and can afford more than a few developers.
Syncing is also a non-issue, as people seem happy enough to plug in whatever software that comes with the device (ala palm handhelds) and of course with a little effort (USB mass storage support for the device to write directly to the internal storage or cards from any modern Win, Mac or Linux box) no drivers would be needed for most tasks.
Beep beep.
Back in the 90s, Psion pulled out of mainstream PDAs because they said they "only" had 14% share. These days, that's 14% share of a damned big market including Smartphones. IMHO Psion have not got the balls to be in business because they keep pulling out of every field they're any good at. Luckily for them, the Teklogix business is a bit of a cash cow but it's hardly mainstream stuff.
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It has been clear since the late 1990's that Linux in its many variations represents the future of the operating system as a technology.
There is of course a huge vested interest in trying to delay and/or stop this process, but it is - obviously, to me - already unstoppable. We are watching the elimination of all incompatible operating systems one by one, much as we watched TCP/IP eliminate a slew of different network protocols in the 1980's and 90's.
Linux is portable and can quickly operate any new system out there. Any vendor using Linux thus has access to a pool of applications that is already large, and growing.
Linux is stable so that applications built 10 years ago still run easily. If I can run Apache on my PDA it's not because someone sweated blood and tears to strip the code down. It's because the OS has done its job.
Linux is open, meaning that no single group can divert it into suboptimal directions. We all know how commercial interests often conflict with basic operational efficiency. Free of these conflicts, Linux is already incredibly plastic, and becoming more so. Beowulf. Knoppix. Technologies made by one or two people, able to change the basic rules of computing. Impossible with a commercial OS but natural with Linux.
Linux has, in essence, demonstrated that the "operating system" as a problem has been solved, and well solved. People will still pay for their OS software for a long time to come, but now it is down to attrition. Windows will conquer no new platforms, not a single one. Linux will take them all, one way or another.
So, Linux for hand-helds (and BTW, I deeply covet those Psion Netbooks) makes perfect sense, but not because of anything to do with the handheld format. Linux makes sense for the hand-held for the same reason that TCP/IP makes sense for the hand-held. How else are you going to do business in the 21st century?
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Functionality is the key, not the license the OS is distributed under.
I couldn't agree more. I'd like to go a bit further, though, and say that functionality on a wide variety of handheld and embedded devices also means modularity, even down to the level of the kernel.
I'm not dissing Linux here, but from what I've seen so far, Linux still has a pretty large footprint until you really start hacking (in the machette sense of the word).
The closest I've seen to what I consider ideal is QNX which has a micro-kernel that is inherently modular. Use only what you need and even swap portions in and out at runtime if necessary. However, QNX licensing, last time I checked, was pretty damned steep and the developer seats were outta sight for a small-time developer.
Then perhaps Linux zealots can then settle down and perhaps stop being zealots.
Is there anything in the post which is Insightful? He's just rehashing what everyone has been exposed to here already.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Badly. I posted on the subject just the other day:
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http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=96128&cid=8
Psion on the other hand produced fantastic operating systems and understood exactly how a small device user interface should work. They could build a truly decent interface and set of applications onto a Linux base.
Linux + Psion could be fantastic. I'd certainly be willing to give it a go.
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In my opinion there is no question whatsoever that Linux is the dominant operating system in the realm of embedded to small-functional computer systems.
PC's, yes, the kind you have to be able to plug thins into, no question that Microsoft has that realm. Same for business.
But, cheap, small, ubiquitous computing is happening. Linux runs on more architectures than almost any other operating system. Thats a vmlinuz for tons of cpu options, and once you've got that, you've got a mad universe of playthings to put into your small, cheap, affordable device.
Linux is what is going to remind us all that computer systems design and application, are utterly arbitrary activities. We can put linux in anything now, at this point, openly and creatively, in ways which definitely do not imply a desktop computing metaphor.
The desktop war has been won, but a new one is being waged, and it is The Device.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Why the favourtism towards Linux?
It's not about favouritism but about choosing standards. This happens a lot in computing, as in other fields. In early days, lots of inventions, many excellent. As time goes on, problems that were once considered "complex" become banal. Products that commanded a premium start to become commodities. The products that move along this curve the fastest - which become commoditized the fastest - succeed and drive out the others.
Each field is different but the winners of such races generally respect certain rules. First, they don't play favourites. A monopoly, even a well-protected one, can only sustain itself so long before it kills its own market. Look at state monopolies on post and telecoms. Secondly, winning products need to be accessible so that they build up a critical mass of popularity and knowledge.
Lastly, winning products have to have a flexibility that lets them capture new markets faster than other products.
To take the example of an earlier comment, the internal combustion engine, though less fuel-efficient than some alternatives, was easy to 'hack', robust on poor road conditions, and open to all to build. Other designs were patented, broke down on rough terrain, or needed more expertise to maintain.
Linux has the critical mass and frankly is much, much more accessible than - for instance - BSD. Pop in your LindowsOS or Xandros CD and 15 minutes later, you have a running Linux. Pop in a Knoppix and it only takes 2 minutes.
Like all standards, it does not matter which one is chosen, rather that there is a standard.
We will, within only a few years, look back at the OS wars and wonder, WTF, why all the fuss?? Like I said before, think of TCP/IP... would you prefer token ring on your PC today?
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