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

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...