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Palm OS To Run On Linux
mwk88 writes "PalmSource today announced it is acquiring China Mobile Soft, a leading Chinese mobile phone software company, and will offer future versions of Palm OS Cobalt running on Linux. Full disclosure: I am a PalmSource employee -- but also a Slashdot reader, and would like to get some feedback. You can find more detail in this letter to the Linux community." NewsForge (also part of OSTG) has a textified (non-PDF), linked version of the letter.
I think it's a nice idea.. Get the best of both worlds.. Look at the Macintosh.. they got tons of software added to their platform by adopting BSD as their OS.
Previously there had been some rumors of PalmOne, the maker of the Palm PDAs and the Treo smartphone, doing Windows Mobile-powered Treo.
c hinamobilesoft/
All this pretty much feels like PalmOS is having its days counted.
Vincent
http://www.oberle.org/blog/2004/12/08/palmsource-
Just yesterday one of our lead support people internally at my institution (Carleton College) commented that people are having sync problems with SP2, and noted that interest in support issues like this seems to be waning, and that less and less really interesting news seems to be coming out about Palm OS. Her impression is that there's serious trouble.
Another outfit in serious trouble was Novell. The situations aren't entirely comparable, of course, but affiliating themselves with the open-source movement seems to have turned Novell (which looked a bit moribund just a few years ago) into an interesting outfit. This move also appears to have opened up new possibilities that nobody could
have foreseen.
So who knows. If Palm OS were able to run under Linux, perhaps some new possibilities would open up there as well, especially given that Linux isn't just a platform on which Palm OS could run, but also a kind of nascent competitor in the mobile device arena.
I don't think halfway measures will help much, though. And the statement cited in the original posting (the PDF file) shows some ambivalence to the whole notion of open-source software.
We'll just have to see where this leads.
---- Richard L. Goerwitz III
If I read this properly - what Palmsource actually plans is a symbiosis between Linux and Palm-OS - while keeping Palm-OS proprietary and closed-source software.
It shows a few similarities with Mac-OS X imho - you can run Linux-software AND Palm software on the same platform.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
You are a PalmSource employee, so we trust you to know what you're talking about.
But you are a slashdot reader, so you won't have read TFA.
This is a dilly of a pickle.
I have been a Palm fan since I got my 3Com Palm III back in the '90s. I recently bought a Tungsten. It is simple to use and has a brilliant interface. (If only they'd bring back Grafitti I.) .prc apps run without much of an issue, and if they keep the interface similar, I don't really care what OS is being used - Palm OS or Embedded Linux. My main concern will simply be integration with my (now six year old) data files.
If the old Palm
On the flip side, I'd love to see a Palm-created synch tool for my home machine which runs almost exclusively on SuSE. Right now I have to use the sometimes flaky KPilot and I get issues with AvantGo.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Two questions on the tip of my tongue were answered outright and the section gives good perspective on the angle company is taking. From the article:
My suggestion: scroll down for the good stuff. It's at the bottom of the article.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
Does anybody even buy palmtop computers anymore? For about ten minutes, every executive wanted one to replace their paper-based Franklin Daytimer, but now it seems that everybody uses their cell phones to do 90% of what they actually used their Palm computers for (address book & schedule reminders), and everybody just brings yellow legal pads to meetings when they want to pretend that they are taking notes and paying attention.
It's been about three years since I've seen anybody take notes on a palmtop in a meeting, and if somebody did they would probably be laughed at.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
" Linux is a trademark owned by William R. Della Croce, an individual, and previously owned by Linus Torvalds, the originator of the GNU code of the same name." wrong! The Linux Trademark suit (1996-1997) Though this has been tried again in other countries, the definitive case over the trademark on "Linux" happenned after an individual named William R Della Croce, Jr of Massachussets fraudulently trademarked the name "Linux", claiming he had made the first use of the name in 1994. Nobody noticed until he sent threatening letters to WGS of Aurora, CO (Linux Mall), Yggdrasil of San Jose, CA (first maker of a Linux distribution on CD) and others. The Linux community provided ample evidence that this was not true. The resulting lawsuit was settled with the trademark being assigned to Linus Torvalds. Right!
What we need is not new software; it's new hardware. We need a Palm that has a real serial port, real USB expansion when it's sitting on a desktop, takes real compact flash (CF) cards (not those tiny palm things,) and has the option to read off of a real screen (that takes up the whole side of the palm; not 1/2 of it.) Also, most importantly, it must take real (AA) batteries. Internal rechargables don't work for those of us who use our plams 16 hours a day. Give me that in a Palm, and I'll arrange an order of 500. Andy Out!
In the project that I'm on, I've pushed for (and successfully gotten) Palms used for interfacing to the electronics in the project. They're far, far more useful than laptops for simple interfacing stuff (anything that can be interfaced with RS232, or nowadays USB). Cheaper, more rugged, much more visible in sunlight, and more importantly, far easier to use. Ever try typing on a keyboard in sub-freezing weather with high winds? Uck.
(On a side bad note, do try to keep Palms slightly in the shade. The screens tend to darken significantly with heat from direct sunlight).
Palms have been used for
and lots, lots more. To be honest, part of the reason that I bought a Palm for my own personal use is that I wanted to support them. A cheap PocketPC device is $150. A cheap Palm is under $100.
Plus, really, who wants to program for a Windows device? Palm even has a Linux programming chain, and a Linux simulator for Palm OS.
It will be a Linux application, that runs on Linux, that runs PalmOS applications.
Why are they doing this? to allow Linux to be an abstraction layer between the hardware and PalmOS.
So, you can take all the zillions of wierd pieces of hardware that run Linux (Toasters, smartphones, IBM mainframes) and after a relatively small piece of work, run PalmOS on them.
It's a way to drive PalmOS sales. Manufacturer makes some hardware, e.g. a smartphone, that runs linux. They buy a PalmOS for Linux license, and bing! their hardware runs PalmOS, with all the palmos goodies that entails. Including (after a recompile) all the third party PalmOS apps. Oh, and it can run native Linux apps too.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Even with all the existing GPL-software for Palm devices on Linux, Palm doesn't include it on the CD-ROM they ship with the devices, they don't list Linux as supported operating system and needless to say, they will tell you to go away when you have a problem synching with Linux.
It's the actions that count, not the words.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Hmmm...
;) ).
If I recall correctly, PalmSource bought the BeOS sourcecode after it had failed in the marketplace.
Everyone expected PalmSource to use the BeOS code as a basis to built another mobile OS on.
Now that PalmSource has announced that they would be running future versions of PalmOS on top of Linux, that previous plan has apparently been axed.
Well, in that case I do have a great proposal for PalmSource if they if they are prepared to give something back to the Open Source community: by releasing the BeOS sourcecode under the GPL or any another acceptable OSI-compliant license.
I'll tell you this, mwk88: if PalmSource were to release the BeOS sourcecode, they would create a tremendous amount of goodwill throughout the entire OSS/FS community, even among many of us that do't use BeOS. And with that, you'd be attracting many talented volunteers who are prepared to help customize and optimize Linux for PalmOS. I can't think of any other use that PalmSource would have for BeOS, now that they're switching to a Linux-based platform.
Please do this, PalmSource. If you do, I'm sure you'll become the next cool open-source friendly company idolized on Slashdot (sorry, Novell
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"