Tizen 2.0 Magnolia SDK and Source Code Released

jrepin writes "The Tizen 2.0 source code and SDK are now available. 'This release includes an enhanced Web framework that provides state-of-the-art HTML5/W3C API support, a Web UI framework (including full-screen and multi-window support), additional Tizen device APIs, such as Bluetooth and NFC support, and access to the device's calendar, call history, and messaging subsystems are now available. Other highlights: The Web Runtime framework supports new configuration elements for specifying the required features and privileges, and provides the basic runtime environment for NPRuntime plugins; the Native framework supports full-featured application development and provides a variety of features such as background applications, IP Push, and TTS (Text-To-Speech)."

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About Page

[bill_mcgonigle]

Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform supported by leading mobile operators, device manufacturers, and silicon suppliers for multiple device categories such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, and smart TVs. Tizen offers an innovative operating system, applications, and a user experience that consumers can take from device to device.

The Tizen project resides within the Linux Foundation and is governed by a Technical Steering Group. The Technical Steering Group is the primary decision-making body for the open source project, with a focus on platform development and delivery, along with the formation of working groups to support device verticals.

The Tizen Association has been formed to guide the industry role of Tizen, including gathering of requirements, identification and facilitation of service models, and overall industry marketing and education.

Tizen provides a robust and flexible environment for application developers, based on HTML5. With HTML5's robust capabilities and cross platform flexibility, it is rapidly becoming the preferred development environment for mobile apps and services. The Tizen SDK and API allow developers to use HTML5 and related web technologies to write applications that run across multiple device segments.

And Wikipedia says:

Market Releases

As of February 2013 there were no announcements either from Samsung or Intel about market releases of Tizen on actual devices. Unofficial disclosures typically come from Samsung officials at conferences. Allegedly, the first devices were planned to hit the market in second half of 2012.[13]. It was then clarified that first quarter of 2013 is not a date of actual product launch but demonstration at Mobile World Congress.[14] Tizen Devices made by Samsung would ship later in 2013 but the exact date has not been disclosed.[15]

A possible cause of delay is Samsung's transition to Bada on top of Linux as a base for the operating system. A Samsung employee involved in the project explained on the project's mailing list the he had not enough permission or knowledge to disclose plans regarding the future of the platform, pointing to the committee of executives in Tizen Association.[16]

Licensing Model

Presented originally as an open source operating system, Tizen 2 has complicated licensing model. Its SDK contains is based on many open source components[7] while the entire SDK has been published under a non-open-source Samsung's licence[8].

The operating system itself is consisted of a many open source components. A number of components internally developed by Samsung (e.g. boot animation, calendar, task manager, music player applications) are however released under the Flora License which is most likely incompatible with requirements of the Open Source Initiative.

Re:Excellent, let's hope they keep it open

[stephanruby]

It does not say if they also plan to keep the development truly open, I hope they do.

No, they don't.

You may not load or install any of the Tizen SDK onto mobile phones or any other devices, except a personal computer...
  Tizen SDK License

They've chosen the JavaME path in that regard, [sarcasm] a real successful plan to emulate. [/sarcasm]

It seems to me that they're going after the feature phone market with this.

In other words, you'll be able to get the phone for free, but you'll have to pay $4.99 every time you want a new ringtone.

Mer

[seandiggity]

Like Tizen, a successor to Maemo/MeeGo but with the community in mind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mer_(operating_system)

...my hunch is that Bada will take center stage for Samsung, and only share code with or assimilate the Tizen components that have restrictive and/or non-copyleft licenses.

Whence Tizen, more importantly, Why?

[drinkypoo]

Tizen came from meego came from moblin came from intel ripping everything non-intel-specific out of Linux and slapping a pretty interface on it (OpenGL ES, maybe?) Unfortunately they never took the time to make moblin stable and then they abandoned it and joined meego and took their toys over there, where presumably they threw away half of what intel did and then sat on it and did nothing (they had a GUI-less release once, whee!) and then they brought out Tizen for some new devices which were capable of running more powerful systems, but abandoned the original Atoms which are the platforms that actually need a lightweight Linux.

I'm having trouble telling if there are any images for anything people actually own, and it doesn't look like it...

YAHASWW (yet another HTML5 apps story without Web)

[spage]

Tizen joins Blackberry 10, Firefox OS, webOS, and Windows 8 in saying "Write HTML5 apps for our platform". Unfortunately these are all also-ran platforms, but it does make it easier for PhoneGap to target them along with turning HTML5 into Android and iOS native apps.

So where are these HTML5 apps? I don't want to have to connect to a a web site and hand over my personal details to maintain a list or edit a photo in my browser. I should be able to try out any application in my browser, and if I like it "pin it" to run locally. I hoped FLOSS developers would step up and develop these, but they seem stuck in the 90s arguing irrelevancies like GTK vs. Qt and Python vs. C++.

Instead there are hundreds of thousands of "apps" that are nothing more than HTML5 packaged a certain way, all dumped into a few needlessly platform-specific App stores.. It's a travesty of the principles of the web, and for no good reason. At least Mozilla has the right vision:

The Mozilla Open Web Apps project proposes some small additions to existing sites to turn them into apps that run in a rich, fun, and powerful computing environment. These apps run on desktop browsers and mobile devices, and are easier for a user to discover and launch than Web sites. They have access to a growing set of novel features, such as synchronizing across all of a user's devices.
...The only thing you have to do to create a Web app from a Web site is to add an app manifest. This is a JSON file that describes your app, including its name, its icons, and a human-readable description.