Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news
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All entries are written by Anders Borg, CEO and Consultant of Abiro, that has a long experience in strategic planning, developing embedded and Java software, usability aspects, and the mobile phone industry in general. You can also read the latest Mobile News entries on your phone via wap.abiro.com, and we provide many News Feeds from popular news services. For advertising and contribution queries, please use the feedback form. News feed (local) FeedBurner Feed
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Thursday, June 29, 2006
Fragmentation also for mobile Linux
Update: LinuxDevices lists most of the different variants of mobile Linux:Linux phones too closed to appeal to Linux users?
The best solution would in my opinion be if Trolltech promoted one specific delivery of Linux.
If you thought Java ME was a fragmented mess, please read this. It seems to look even worse for Linux.
Trolltech two years ago: each of the FOUR different Linux cellphone initiatives, plus TWO more other companies who develop with Linux for their cellphone software, are completely incompatible
Today: at least SIX different implementations of Linux/Qt/other-API that are neither binary or source compatible with each other
Interestingly this is when you use Trolltech Qt. If you don't want to do that, and instead use e.g. GTK, for cost and/or lock-in reasons, the fragmentation gets even worse, and suddenly puts Java ME in a very good light.
If anything, an application platform for downloaded/dynamic applications needs to be compatible across devices so that investments in development can be compensated by volumes, and so that customers don't need to buy certain devices to run specific applications.
Hopefully the new Linux initiative will fix it to a certain degree, but the author was sceptical about that as well:
They only forgot to tell us that neither the PalmSource, Mizi Research, or OSDL initiatives are part of this "globally adopted platform".
Microsoft Windows is a good example of when it works out right. You might think what you like about Microsoft and Windows as such, but there's at least compatibility across PCs, as all PCs sold today run Windows XP. There's even backwards compatibility to a certain degree, so for that matter I'm happy Microsoft dominates, but maybe not for any other reason.
This makes me feel better about the Java ME situation. Actually I rather consider this a challenge and an opportunity for companies with the competence to overcome the hurdles. If there are no obstacles, how do you avoid commodity-style competition?
Editorial: The Chaos of Incompatibility in Mobile Linux - OSNews.com
