Palm to go Linux

jetkins writes "The Melbourne Age reports that company officials announced Tuesday that Palm will move to a new Linux-based platform 'to help the company compete better.' The move was announced 'during a meeting with analysts in New York, where they also discussed the company's business strategy and refused to talk about recent rumors of a possible buyout.'"

Comments

Old News???

[arthurpaliden]

Were they not going to do this a few years ago as well and then shelved the whole thing.

Re:Old News???

[AKAImBatman]

Were they not going to do this a few years ago as well and then shelved the whole thing.

They've been on and off talking about it. What I don't get is why Palm Hardware never used the BeOS-based Palm Software OS. It was an ultra-modern OS, with features that WinCE could only dream of having, was better suited to handheld profiles, and yet Palm Hardware started making WinCE devices.

Ever since then, they keep pulling out this idea of a Linux handheld, then sticking it back in the box. Pull it out, put it back in. Pull it out, put it back in. Why don't they just go get their rights back from ACCESS so they use the bloody PALM OS?!?

Ok, rant over.

Re:Old News???

[jsnorman]

Actually, Palm (the hardware company) never announced until this PR any intention of moving to an internally developed OS. It was ACCESS (fka PalmSource, the Palm operating system company seperated from Palm hardware), that announced they were moving to Linux several years ago;but that project seems to be treading water at best.

What is interesting is the Palm (hardware company) is basically slapping ACCESS's face hard here - they are tired of waiting for a new and improvied Palm OS, apparently did not like Cobalt, and are tired of waiting for ACCESS to get its act together on Linux .. so they did it on their own. If true, it is the nail in ACCESS's already buried coffin.

Re:Old News???

[mrchaotica]

Poorly designed convergence is a problem.

Yep.

There is no technical reason why a phone shouldn't be a perfectly good music player.

Yes there is: it has the wrong interface.

There's no reason for a PDA not to include phone capabilities.

Ditto.

The hardware is basically the same stuff.

Except for the interface.

Now, here's what really ought to happen: divide up the hardware by interface instead of by function. Stop putting storage and transceivers (e.g. cellular, wifi) in all the devices; instead put that stuff on a brick (without a display) that I can leave in my pocket, and then give me a dumb terminal-like touchscreen (that's as thinner than a PDA), a headset, and maybe a calculator watch-like device for when the touchscreen is unnecessary. Then hook it all together with Bluetooth or wires or something. That's how "convergence" should be!

interesting++

[rucs_hack]

Given that PDAs are falling behind in the face of smart phones, going to Linux might just entice the linux haXX0r community to produce some fun applications that help Palm in the marketplace.

I don't know if there is already an unofficial palm Linux, but having it officially sanctioned would be a good thing.

Hell, I'm tempted to get one now just to have some coding fun, seriously.

For me, Palm died when PalmOS went away

[GMFTatsujin]

I loved the classic Palm applications. No boot-up time, no waiting, no graphics-heavy Windows-like desktop compressed to the size of an index card ...

There seemed to be a lot of hobbyist development, too. People found ways to make the Palm keep track of what they wanted. As I recall, the Palm database format encouraged a lot of interchangeability and standardization. Mind-mapping and outlines were easy as pie and quick to bring up, so I rarely lost any ideas.

When they moved with Windows CE (or whatever they called the mobile variant that week), I threw up my hands. The hardware wasn't suited to it, and there were few -- if any -- replacements for the apps I cared to use. As far as I know, all the good stuff went the way of the dodo.

So I guess my question is: how does the move to Linux bode for developers? Will there be compatibility with any of the classic Palm OS or Windows CE apps, or will we once again have to build from scratch?

Re:Are we going to be able to see the source code?

[644bd346996]

You have severely underestimated the GPL. I suggest you go read it. The GPL is not that dense. But to answer the question at hand, yes, all customers will have access to the source code for the GPL portions (which will be the bulk of the OS). All customers will have the right to re-distribute and modify that code. That is the price Palm pays for using Free software.

Given Palm's history of being developer friendly, it will probably be possible to flash the PDAs with custom ROMs with all proprietary code stripped. Depending on the exact terms, it may even be possible to create a custom ROM with proprietary backwards compatibility code included.

There can be only one!!!

[mlwmohawk]

OK, lets be honest, we all need our cell phones.
Some of us need our blackberries.
We all want our music.

Rather than juggle all three, there is no reason why the cell phone can't do everything and more. After all a computer, whether it is in a P.C., Cellphone, or what ever is still a computer.

IMHO, Palm is wrong, they are coming into the system from the wrong direction, they MUST focus on the phone first and most, then blackberry, then MP3 player. Deliver a package to Verizon, Cingular, Orange, etc.

This is why iPhone will do better.

Re:About time...

[fishybell]

At my work we have roughly 20 salespeople and project managers that are using Treo 700p's and 650's. Yes the 650's were a crapshoot, but with the updated firmware, they work great (and even survive being dropped, having the screen cracked, etc. and almost survive being washed). The 700p's though...not so much. They are in desperate need of a firmware update. Palm has hinted that the problems are hardware related, but as not Rev B. is slated for arrival, I'd say they're just too cheap or lazy to fix the problems.

As far as syncing is concerned, we use the 650's and the 700p's to sync through the phone network to our internal linux server. It updates their client contacts, the employee directory, and their personal contacts nearly flawlessly. It's not too hard to do with pilotsync and python/tcl/perl/whatever. We use tcl here, and the code to run the sync (connect to postgres, wrapper for pilotsync api calls, etc) is 474 lines of code, and the code to manage and initiate incoming syncs is 6.

Re:Wonderful Triple OS strategy

[hey!]

What I'd really like to see is somebody offering the equivalent Palm m505 for under $50. Ideally well under. That would not only revive the idea of a PIM, but actaully revitalize the PDA product category. The problem is at the price points vendors sell modern PDAs at, you have to stuff more power and functions into them than people need. The results are to bulky, expensive and complex to justify the price point.

That's what's really behind convergence. If you're going to buy a lot of things you don't need all that much, its very inefficient to buy them more than once.

Given modern technology, PDAs should be one step up from disposable. If you drop your PDA or lose it, you go to the drug store, grab a new one, sync and go.

The 500 series is just about right with one proviso: it should be possible to dial your phone wirelessly from them. It might be nice to be able to browse the web, but that could go in Cheap But Highly Useful PIM v 2. If you could buy something that useful for $49, you probably would. If you could buy it for $19.99 you almost certainly would. Multiple PIM ownership would be common. You'd probably even pick one up if you forgot yours at home.