Cellular Companies Join to Improve Linux

TrdrJoe writes to mention a Reuters article about a group of cell companies joining up to develop an open-source Linux-based OS for many of the market's phones. From the article: "Linux software currently occupies only a tiny proportion of the mobile market, mainly in China, while market leaders Symbian and Microsoft dominate the space. The attraction of Linux for handset makers is that as the code is not owned by any one company competition is likely to be fierce between firms supplying ready-to-use embedded Linux versions for phones, driving down fees, whereas Symbian and Microsoft can keep prices higher."

Comments

Finally

[Dested]

Its about time that bigger companys realize that they dont need to screw over a buncha people to make money.

Heh

[C_Kode]

Microsoft has to be screaming obscenities left and right. Free software attacks every single one of their real cash pipelines and Google attacks the rest. (except for hardware) Everyone know there isn't any real money in hardware unless your name is Apple. The only reason Apple makes money in hardware is because of their cult following who will fire the wallets at them like canon balls.

Re:Analogy

[fullphaser]

Well, if nothing else they can throw the one thing they do have at the project (which for the most part isn't brains) but they can throw money at the software, and money is usally a good thing, so you could hire programmers and still keep the software free.

this means little to consumers

[path_man]

So am I going to save $50 on the next cell phone that I buy because my handset manufacturer didn't have to pay a licensing fee for the phone's operating system? Highly doubtful.

Am I going to have better features and/or functionality because linux is running instead of Microsoft phone OS? Again, highly doubtful. Maybe it'll be a little easier to be extensible or perhaps more flexibly upgraded but really, on a cell phone is this a big deal?

From what I can gather, the only ones who really benefit from linux on the handsets are shareholders of the manufacturers themselves, as they'll be able to save $x on y phones every year, thus adding to their bottom line.

Meh, this is a nonissue. The headline should have been, "Cellular Companies Look For Ways To Save Money".

Re:this means little to consumers

[TrdrJoe]

this may be a huge win for consumers. My biggest problem with my cell phone is that I can't write applications for it. When other companies like linksys adopted linux for their embedded systems, it allowed entire communities to be created around, for example, the NSLU2, allowing me for example to load programs onto it. Admittedly, cell providers want to control what services are run on the device, which probably means they will keep the platform as closed as possible, ie. closed drivers and applications. However, since their main goal is to facilitate third-party application development, as they state, it must be open to _some_ developers. Since they also want to reduce costs, they may make it open to open-source developers too, who can offer said applications at no cost. If I can develop my own apps to run on a cell phone, I would be happy enough, even if I can't reinstall the OS. A sample application I've been wanting somebody to write: a voice menu for my calendar since the UIs on cell phones stink. For example: "calendar" -> "new todo" -> "this sunday" -> "call dad for father's day". The cell-phone calendar is synched with my computer and on sunday morning I would get a voice reminder from whichever device I am using.

Gates Won't Like It

[kuleiana]

...therefore, I'm all for it! Well, just kidding, I'm sure he's not a bad guy, but really, who wants to use Windows on their cell phone, after putting up with it on their desktop for so long? Microsoft has done a great job of marketing "Windows Mobile" as if it were really just a scaled down "mobile OS" version of Windows XP, through its interface skin and marketing materials (although any reasonable person like Mac user little ole me won't like it). The need for a robust OS that is user-friendly enough to be used on phones and other devices is so overdue that people like myself are practically ready to write it themselves.

Of course, this doesn't make me a fan of cell phone companies, I think they're the worst when it comes to thinking of users' needs. Now if Linux Mobile were just a little bit farther along, we'd be all set...