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Mobile Linux Group Releases First Specification
narramissic writes "Google's Android may be getting all the headlines, but the venerable LiPS (Linux Phone Standards Forum), which launched to much fanfare in 2005, is rolling out the specs. The group, comprised of companies including Orange, France Telecom, MontaVista, and Access, announced Monday that it has completed the first release of its mobile Linux specification, adding components including APIs for telephony, messaging, calendar, instant messaging, and presence functions, as well as new user interface components."
It only took 3 years to get the standards out? Well, it looks like 2012 will be the year of both the linux desktop and the linux phone.
Orange is a brand of France Telecom, not two separate entities:
http://www.orange.com/english/access/aboutUs.php
Is it competing, or are they complementary?
the tone of the summary seems to suggest that while android is still vapor in terms of real devices, some other group is actually rolling out something.
except that something they are "rolling out" are specs.
which android also has plenty of. plus IDE. plus emulator.
so, well... huh?
Not really. I'd rather program for linux than some wierd Java API any day of the week. Hell, all they have to do is provide a C++ API and there's a huge pool of developers who'd use it over Android due to language alone.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I think 2012 is already slated to be the Year of Linux on the Toaster Oven. Linux on the Phone will be probably have to wait until 2014.
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... but does this have any relation to OpenMoko?
Or will the OpenMoko guys have to play catch-up?
Ignore this signature. By order.
Well, me... I'm personally holding out for a Python API. Python is really good for RAD work, and well, I gotta tell you, I don't have time for traditional development methods these days. Python is easy and quick. And that's how mobile app development should be -- you should be able to write apps on the go!
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Several companies already have linux Operating systems. I think motorola makes several that use the linux operating system
Reviewing the member list at the Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS) web site I noticed that none of the major handset companies joined this organization. The Open Handset Alliance on the other hand has HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung as members.
Having a standard is all well and good, but it only matters if someone puts it into a phone.
Also, how many development platforms can survive in the cell phone market anyway? Besides Android and LiPS (we'll ignore Microsoft for now), there are Symbian, the LiMo Foundation and a la Mobile - all Linux-based. The first two or three to get accepted will attract the developers and dominate the market (unless they *really* bring something new to the game).
Never let reality temper imagination
Never let reality temper imagination
The nice thing about standard^Wspecification/API is that there are so many to choose from :-(
OpenMoko, Android, LiPS,.. there's going to be a selection quite soon: there aren't that many phone manufacturers who wants to develop their own applications..
OpenMoko and LiSP are too little, too late. Android is in the works, and they got it all: Branding, a prototype GUI, and the right members (Open Handset Alliance Project).
Android will be the Linux on mobile phones, and it will be great.
Google's Android may be getting all the headlines, but the venerable LiPS (Linux Phone Standards Forum), which launched to much fanfare in 2005, is rolling out the specs.
From what I understand, the LiPS had been "stuck in committee" with no real progress until Google announced Android. Then all of the sudden, there was a flurry of activity.
Specs are nice, and it's good to see progress, but the slashdot summary seems to have a distinct "look at LiPS, it's better, it has SPECS!". That's great, but..here's a prototype device running Android, and let's not forget the OpenMoko people, which have not only got a so-close-you-can-taste it physical device, they've got a pretty sorted software package as well, which runs on a couple of existing phone/pda widgets. The OpenMoko stuff and the Palm/HP/etc PDA stuff (I forget the proper project names, sorry!) is quite open and documented. The Linux-on-handheld boys have had working software out there for *years*.
Welcome to the party, boys. Beer's been had, chips are gone- there's some frosting left on the cake platter, though. Same thing to Google- it's nice that they have shiny prototypes, but if they're so open-source, why couldn't they work with any of the existing groups? Ah, I love the open source world: why help someone else, when you can re-invent your own wheel (anyone remember the days of Freshmeat's front page being literally FILLED with mp3 players software?)
Please help metamoderate.
Have you done a lot of development work in C++ and Java? Say what you want about Java performance, but it's a far cleaner syntax than C++ resulting in much cleaner APIs. I don't know the details surrounding Android, but (assuming it is) a Java OS is going to invite quite a lot of developer effort simply because of the lower threshold for becoming competent in the language.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Talk about LiPService: Access (of Japan) was the company that basically bought the PalmOS away from Palm. They claimed (in 2005) that they were going to roll out mobile phones running Linux, with PalmOS GUI and binary compatibility. Where are they? Just now putting out just specs, right as Google and the rest of the world blot them out of existence. Nearly certainly taking chances of a Linux mobile with Palm compatibility (and its library of apps and developers) to zero.
--
make install -not war
That's funny, as when you write some code using the Qt library things are so clear and concise that you even get the feeling you are using some higher level scripting language. That's not the case with java. Ever.
The C++ programming language may support nice toys like templates and meta programming, which tend to be a headache to deal with and a pain to read. As a consequence, at least to some extent, the same applies to the STL. Nonetheless, who is forced to use all features of a language? No one.
So please don't say silly things. You only end up looking silly.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
And because Java bytecode is compiled to native machine code at runtime, it's pretty snappy too. The tradeoff is the slight delay each time you run something. For a service that runs constantly, and hardly ever restarts, it's not a bad tradeoff.
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No, Java isn't a cleaner language, and doesn't provide cleaner APIs. Its a far more complex language, lacking many features, and with a third rate class library. And as a bonus it has low performance with impossible to predict spikes for garbage handling, which makes it an absolutely inane idea for a real time device. I'll take C++ over it any day of the week- you'd have to pay me large amounts of money to even consider doing a job in Java. And I'd never use it for a personal project. Anything that requires me to use Java is a complete non-starter, so Android may as well not exist for me.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Anything that at first runs slow would be a complete non-starter. Some things take time to become mature.
Java in the past has been really slow. But Java on a mobile device. Is actually pretty fast. At least on my phone.
Android really just uses the Java language then takes the class files and converts them to it's own interpreted machine language (like rim does with their devices)
Sure Java has it's downfalls but then every single language does. The problem isn't with Java. It's where the language should be used thats the problem. Also if you check anything that is being processed in real time is either done in hardware or on top of the linux os. (either in kernel or userspace) not on top of the dalvik interpreter.
Java on a mobile device, where app's stay small is a pretty good choice. Sure c++ would work but java is fine too. Now perl would be a bad choice for a phone.
With all that said when was the last time you really looked into java? With a good jvm or compiled directly?
please? He/she makes some great points.
Python is good for beginners but a bit mainstream for my tastes.
I prefer BrainFuck.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I'll grant you that handling memory management manually on small embedded devices like phones may seem like a good idea, for now. But not for long.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Anyway, I think a Python API would be cool for phones.
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One significant difference between Linux on a PC and Linux on a mobile is that it is illegal to expose the core baseband processor architecture to open software, because that would make it trivial to create network destroying devices.
I've heard that preventing such tampering was the reason much of the firmware is closed, but this is the first time I've seen the assertion of an actual law or regulation requiring the firmware internals be kept secret.
Can you (or someone) give us a pointer to the law and/or regulation in question?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Aaah, interesting. I didn't know that about Dalvik.
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That said, I like Python a lot. I just will not use it for many applications because of performance problems. Pity.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I excited for that!!! Java Outsource