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Handhelds Hardware

Linux to Power Most Motorola Phones 249

Posted by michael from the cheaper-than-the-competition dept.
raffe writes "Motorola will begin selling its first cell phone based on Linux this year and says most future models will follow suit, a major sign of the growing popularity of operating system outside its stronghold on high-end computers."
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Linux to Power Most Motorola Phones More

Linux to Power Most Motorola Phones

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  • all good and well (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:20AM (#5293746)
    But symian os is already OSS and probably better for mobile phones (since Nokia spearheaded the modular phone movement).

    Now a Linux development kit for symian would be nice though.

    • Re:all good and well (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      if you are meaning symbian not symian, it is not open source, you can get some sdk:s for free and you can't get any internal information about how stuff works.
    • But symian os is already OSS and probably better for mobile phone

      Wow! Open Source Monkeys? Let's get them cracking on Linux 3.0. :-P

    • Re:all good and well (Score:5, Informative)

      by DrunkenPenguin ( 553473 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:02AM (#5293913) Homepage
      Now a Linux development kit for symbian would be nice though.

      Yeah, it would, wouldn't it? Why don't you go and download it for free here! [nokia.com]

      ---
      • >> Now a Linux development kit for symbian would be nice though.

        Yeah, it would, wouldn't it? Why don't you go and download it for free

        That link is for Java development on Linux -> Symbian. That's quite nice!

        However, if you want to develop C++ applications you are out of luck! No Linux support.

        Imagine; Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, etc, etc, supports Symbian because they do not want to be controlled by Microsoft and their Stinker platform. But to develop C++ applications, the Symbian developers have to (drumroll) use Windows!! :-( :-( :-(

  • Battle Agains Windows (Score:5, Interesting)

    by e8johan ( 605347 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:20AM (#5293747) Homepage Journal

    It seems as Windows and Linux will meet at yet another frontier. Desktop-wise Windows is holding strong and no break-through seems to be near. Server wise, I'd say that Windows is loosing, but only slowly and more work will be needed. In the portable area, both Linux and Windows are relatively new players, but Linux is better suited. Hopefully this will mean that more developers start using (and liking) Linux, and thus help Linux in other areas.

    As for the phones; Can I make a call from bash?

    • Grammar nazi (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by Xner ( 96363 )
      Windows is loosing

      Lose != win
      Loose != tight

      Is it too much to ask to see someone get it right for a change?

      • Re:Grammar nazi (Score:2, Informative)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
        Lose != win
        Loose != tight
        Umm, Lose is not equal to tight either, and neither is Loose equal to win. I think you meant:
        Lose == !win
        Loose == !tight
      • Maybe it was a Freudian slip about MS's viruses, other bugs, and "spread wide open by default" configurations, and general whoring?

    • Re:Battle Agains Windows (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Koos Baster ( 625091 ) <ghostbusters@xs4[ ].nl ['all' in gap]> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:38AM (#5293812)
      Linux scales: From mainframes to microprocessors. Windows can't do that. There isn't a single Windows CE/ PocketPC that does anything useful in less than 8MB. This may not look like a problem since memory and processing power are getting cheaper, but remember that Moore's law applies only to silicon, not to the batteries powering the silicon.

      PalmOS and Symbian have good playing cards as well, being lean and mean and having a relatively large number of PDA applications ready for use, but they may lack portability of some typical desktop applications.

      As for the phones; Can I run bash using voice commands?
    • There are still a bunch of applications that are only supported on Windows, especially if we're talking "portables". You can have a softphone (just like your office desk phone) on your handheld [avaya.com]. Anyone with exchange and shared calendars also like to see their calendar available on the portable.

  • SMS? (Score:3, Funny)

    by T-Kir ( 597145 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:23AM (#5293753) Homepage

    I suppose it'll give a whole new meaning if the phone says "Time for a fsck"

    Linux and Java archenemy, Microsoft, said Motorola's move doesn't change things much--it's just a new variation on the fight to lure programmers to Microsoft software rather than Java.

    Nice to see MS still have their heads in the sand, lets just hope Sendo survive and win their lawsuit.

  • Someone explain to me (not a troll) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Omkar ( 618823 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:26AM (#5293761) Homepage Journal
    why I need any OS on my lower-end phone. I just want to make some calls!

    • You will need an OS since most future phones will be built from a common platform and then targeted by altering of software, and perhaps gadgets. Thus a low end phone can just be a high end one running less cool software, will less memory and slower CPU. (just like low end computers).

      I hope that you understand the need for an OS on higher end phones, so I will not go into that.

    • You need an OS because otherwise the phone would sit there doing nothing. They are all controlled by a microprocessor, and there is a lot going on in a modern phone. Some sort of concurrent OS is needed, so the phone can do many things at once (scan keyboard, handle GSM codec, handle RF and IF stages, display stuff, so on). It makes a certain amount of sense to use a tried and tested OS kernel, although why they want it to run Java I don't know. It should be written with the tightest code possible to make the most of the tiny CPU.
      • The OS itself and its subsystems (GSM/GPRS, IR/BT, camera, voice recognition, etc) aren't written in Java; they're written in very tight, small, fast code, usually C or C++ with bits of assembler. But the phone supports a Java engine so it can run Java apps, which makes it easy for 3rd party developers to target the phone. Like Microsoft did with Windows in the 90's: encourage the developer community, and your product gains mindshare.

    • All mobile phones have an operating system. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:54AM (#5293881)
      You just can't see it.

    • Yup an os is necessary and it is usually a multi-threaded multi-processor OS and in case you didn't know, even your car might have an OS. VxWorks tends to be a top-seller (or was a few years back) though some companies have their own OS for their products. Do a search on the web for embedded OS.
    • Despite what many posters have said, no, you don't need an OS for a cell phone. Any software or firmware application can be created without an OS. In complex applications, however, it's usually more cost-effective to use one.

  • tsk tsk... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ziggyboy ( 232080 )
    I'm all for Linux but I'd have to say this is just a marketing strategy. Motorola is desperate.

    • Re:tsk tsk... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Inflatable Hippo ( 202606 )
      > I'm all for Linux but I'd have to say this is just a marketing strategy. Motorola is desperate.

      And so they're not sitting on their laurels and making safe "me too" decisions that don't differentiate their products from their rivals. Good.

      I was at CeBit last year as a phone application developer and I spoke at length (or tried to) to all the major handset manufacturers about various issues to do with application distribution and certification.

      Of the three (Sony/Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola) I found the Motorola guys very open and genuinely helpful. They understood that they had to get developers on board and genuinely seemed interested in how they could help. That kind of stuff makes an impression, here I am singing there praises after all.

      The other two companies stands were just the usual "look at our shiny stuff" kind of thin and the staff were there to give out badges and look cool. This was during the "trade only" so it's not like they were busy.

      So this news doesn't suprise me at all, it shows they've still got the same attitude I saw last year. It's fantastic news for developers, we get a stable tool chain and stable OS from the off.

      Compare this the state of WindowsCE/PocketPC/Stinker, PalmOS 3.x/4.x/5.x (with Palm or handspring variant libs) etc. I'm no Symbian developer so I can't comment on that but the other "two" (feels more like 7 or 8) OSs are a nightmare when it comes to getting reliable GPRS connections to stay up and work reliably. Kind of useful in a phone don't you think?

      So... Pleased am I.

  • Hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:27AM (#5293768) Homepage Journal
    I'd be interested in what kind of hardware they are using. I built a Linux-based cell phone a while back (uses VoIP w/ WiFi) and the best hardware I could find was still somewhat clunky (PDA sized) and cost about $400. I'm looking into rebuilding the software into tablet and wearable form factors but I'd sure love to find a cellphone sized device that ran Linux that I could hack on.

    • I'd be interested in what kind of hardware they are using.

      Well it'll be custom-designed, without a doubt. I don't think anyone makes standardized hardware modules for mobile phones and sells them on the open market, the design constraints vary too much from phone to phone. I know someone who does PCB design for mobile phones - he is seriously in demand, there's a big shortage of people with the right skillset for it - and he tells me that most of the time it's a new PCB for each model, and they're very very cramped and complicated designs.

      Almost certainly the hardware will be based around an ARM7 variant - probably an ARM720T as it has an MMU - as they're simply the best for the job, lowest power for the most MIPS, but that's about as standard as it gets. The radio interface, and probably everything else, will be Motorola's own design.

      If you want to build your own phone which competes with commercial designs, you're going to have to learn micro-PCB design or contract out to someone who can, and you'll probably have to accept that some of the components (e.g. the radio interface) won't be as good as the big manufacturers' designs. Sorry, but that's the way it is. :(

  • High End? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
    stronghold on high-end computers

    Do they mean like servers, or what? I run coyote [coyotelinux.com] off a floppy on a like 20MHz 286.

  • Dom Jolly (Score:3, Funny)

    by jpsst34 ( 582349 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:29AM (#5293775) Journal
    HELLO?! WHAT?! No, I'm on Linux! LINUX! No it's rubbish! Yeah, I have to worry about dependencies and all that bollocks! Ciao!

  • Yeah whatever (Score:2, Insightful)

    by The Terrorists ( 619137 )
    Okay, that's fine. You can post the Linux distro installed in GWB's mucus if you like, but self-congratulatory "X uses linux" posts are useless. Analysis is required - does this use of Linux in Motorola phones make it less likely that it will be used widely as a desktop? I think Linux is rapidly becoming viewed as an appliance engine.

    • Linux is officially an appliance engine? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Idou ( 572394 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @10:34AM (#5294526) Journal
      "does this use of Linux in Motorola phones make it less likely that it will be used widely as a desktop? I think Linux is rapidly becoming viewed as an appliance engine."

      In breaking news today, IBM, HP, and Sun Microsystems have officially dropped their plans for Linux becuase, quote, "Linux is just an appliance engine."

      Meanwhile, sales of desktop Windows have crashed as the public has come to terms with "Windows only being a game console OS."

      I guess I would tell the parent to "lighten up" if he was not already modded "Insightful."

      Before you mod me down, please realize that I could have been a coward and used my mod points to mod the parent down, instead of posting a reply.

  • More stable phones? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BFaucet ( 635036 )
    Cool... my phone has locked up a few times... maybe this'll fix that.

    • Only... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Duds ( 100634 ) <dudley@NospAm.enterspace.org> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:37AM (#5293809) Homepage Journal
      ...if you recompile your phone's kernal.

      Every time you add a new number. ;)

      still, I can start sending my business card as an rpm :p
      • The "recompile kernel" jokes are getting as worn out as the "imagine a beowulf cluster" jokes.

        OTOH, maybe you really think it's a difficult thing to configure and compile a Linux kernel. It's been dirt smple since at least 2.0.35 (first kernel I compiled).

        When was the last time you HAD to recompile your kernel? My PC speaker issoldered to my mobo, so I disabled it in the kernel. This is the only time I;ve needed to recompile my kernel.

        There is no "a" in kernel, btw.

  • A problem? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dakkus ( 567781 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:33AM (#5293791) Homepage
    Now what am I gonna do when I go buying my next mobile? As a Finn I should of course buy a Nokia, since doing that won't send all my money abroad. But in the other hand I want to have Linux in my phone. Buying it would of course send my money even out from the EU, which is a bad thing. And knowing the current political situation with NATO, Germany and all I'd rather not buy anything from USA.. But even though Nokias Series 60 -plaform is /somewhat/ open, I'd like the idea of truly free OS in my phone very much. And if I could get a console on that motorola.. *drool*

    Now what am I going to do?
    • If you're a Swedish speaking Finn (like Linus), buy a Motorola. Otherwise go with Nokia.
    • Keep in mind that nothing is ever that simple. Both Nokia and Motorola may and DO have foreign investors. So no matter what you do at some point your money is goign to circle the globe.

      Lets keep politics out of our technology purchasing decisions.

  • Well that explains.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Duds ( 100634 ) <dudley@NospAm.enterspace.org> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:35AM (#5293800) Homepage Journal
    ...the butt awful interface on every motorola I've ever used.

    Actually seriously, all motorlas I've use right up till the v66 are appaulingly horrible to do anything with. Before I would actually buy one they really need to sort this out. Reading a text message was an exercise in hell ffs.

    • The Startac line was quite innovative in its time. Since then MOT's not had too many good ideas. I wonder how the product manager who thought of using Linux managed to avoid getting sacked or demoted. Meanwhile, NOK seems to have some clever ideas up its sleeve; please NOK make lots of money so my stock portfolio will go back up ;-) And please Verizon, ffs, start offering more Nokia phones! It's the biggest cell phone maker in the world, makes the best damn phones, and they offer one low end NOK and a bunch of Samsung, Motorola and Kyocera junk.

      My cell phone needs are very simple; great reception, great battery life, MP3 player, 2 MP camera, PalmOS or similar pim stuff, expandability, Linux desktop connectivity. Someone please invent this phone soon!

  • Yamaha too! (Score:5, Informative)

    by paulbd ( 118132 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:35AM (#5293803) Homepage
    Its worth noting that Yamaha (the music gear maker, not the motorcycle maker) announced recently that they would be using an embedded version of linux for most of their keyboards in the near future.

    • Just fyi, Yamaha music and motors are affiliates. They even use the same logo.

      Yep. Why else would a motorcycle manufacturer have a logo which is three overlapping tuning forks? ;-)

      Milalwi

  • Good news: embedded rules the world (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:35AM (#5293805)
    This is very good news! All it takes is a couple large companies like this to adopt Linux (e.g. for embedded systems, perfect use for Linux).

    Everyone on slashdot loves desktop PCs and laptops, but the vast majority of computing power in the world exists in embedded systems like in your car, home appliances, portable gadgets, etc. These little systems really run the world.

    So when embedded systems engineers get hooked on Linux, believe me, that's huge.
    • Would you care to elaborate on how Linux is perfect for embedded systems?

      • Re:Good news: embedded rules the world (Score:4, Informative)

        by marm ( 144733 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @10:20AM (#5294429)

        Would you care to elaborate on how Linux is perfect for embedded systems?

        Because it's easy to strip it down to the absolute bare minimum you need - you get all the code. For the same reason it's easy to bugfix. It's robust and well tested. It's fast. With the preemptible kernel patch it does soft real-time very well, and can do hard real-time with other extensions. It has device drivers coming out of its ears. It supports all the same APIs that full-blown desktop/server Linux does, so you can develop and test the application software on a Linux PC and then it'll run on your embedded system. This also means there's enormous quantities of pre-written software you can use to help out, and most of it is free. It's ported to every CPU architecture you can think of, and probably a few you can't. If you don't have an MMU, well, there are versions of Linux that can do without. Most importantly of all, it's either free or cheap, depending on whether you do the work stripping it down yourself or whether you get an embedded Linux vendor to do it for you.

        The only real black mark against it as an embedded OS is the lack of hard real-time as standard, but this is fixable, and irrelevant to most embedded apps anyway. Otherwise, yes, it is pretty much perfect for embedded systems. Why do you think it's doing so well? :)

  • Killer-app for Linux-powered cell phones! (Score:3, Funny)

    by borgdows ( 599861 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:41AM (#5293821)
    I hope Motorola will include Xkillbill on their phones!!

  • Wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zensonic ( 82242 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:42AM (#5293825) Homepage
    Outsiders agree. "The story here isn't really Linux on cell phones. It's Java running on Linux," Jackson said. "It's more about it being a bigger part of Motorola's Java strategy than it is about the efficacy or viability of Linux."

    That's just wrong. The story is about selling more phones. How to do that. Easy: Put (java)games, (java)PIM applications, (java)Chat, (java)anything on the phone. A second bonus is ofcourse that linux runs on top of the PPC arch that motorola develops. It's also worth noting that now that Apple is flirting with IBM motorola needs customers for it's PPC line. It all makes sense: Let one division of motorola use the chips that the other division produces.

    I'm only worried about what all this does for battery lifetime of my phone :-/

    • It all makes sense: Let one division of motorola use the chips that the other division produces.

      Mmmm perhaps you have a point. Practically all phones today, including all of Motorola's, run on some kind of ARM variant... and Symbian is only targetting ARM as a platform. It might be exactly the reason they went with Linux rather than Symbian - so they can use their own CPU designs instead.

      That said, Motorola is a large enough potential customer that Symbian would probably port to any architecture they asked without hesitation. I don't think Motorola has any CPU that's comparable to an ARM7 either, all the PPCs are too power-hungry for a mobile phone and all their other lines (e.g. 68k, Coldfire) are too slow.

      I guess we'll see when the phones come out.

      • Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Informative)

        by Troed ( 102527 )
        "Symbian OS has been ported to many ARM cored system-on-chips. These include the PrimeXSys platform from ARM, the StrongARM and XScale architectures from Intel, the OMAP platform from Texas Instruments and the Dragonball platform from Motorola."


        link [symbian.com]


        Motorola, of course, is one of Symbian's owners.

    • It's also worth noting that now that Apple is flirting with IBM motorola needs customers for it's PPC line.

      Apple is not one of Motorola's biggest customers. Motorola does not need Apple. That's why Motorola is not putting many resources into developing workstation class chips anymore. And that's why Apple is [rumored to be] looking to IBM. Besides, they're not even the same line of chips. Motorola seems to release a new chip for embedded systems every month. They'd be fine without Apple.

  • From the interface gods of Linux and Motorola - (Score:5, Funny)

    by Omkar ( 618823 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:42AM (#5293826) Homepage Journal
    The new, Linux-powered, easy-to-use SmartPhone! To make a call, just enter the IP address of each router!

  • Motorolla's press release... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Simon Brooke ( 45012 ) <stillyet@googlemail.com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:43AM (#5293832) Homepage Journal
    is here [motorola.com]. I can't find a picture of the device anywhere. Does anyone know whether it will run QTopia [trolltech.com]? If so, the QTopia platform (already adopted by Sharp and IBM) will be getting some useful momentum.

  • But will they be usable? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:43AM (#5293833)
    Running Linux is great, but Motorola phone have had a long history of being the most fiddly, battery sapping, unfriendly bastards to operate for a long while. Who cares what OS is running underneath if the software subjects you to hellish reams of menus and extra buttons when competing phones from Nokia or whoever just seem to work with a few clicks?


    I say this as someone who was actually contracting for Motorola, when a rant came down from management demanding that everyone use Motorola phones. I wonder if anyone was actually brave enough to actually tell him why none of the workforce were using their phones...


    Anyway, I hope the situation has changed and management has gotten a clue. No one will eat a cake that looks like a giant dog turd even if it is made of delicious marzipan. The same goes for running Linux in a phone.

    • It's agreed that most Moto phones have clunky feeling interfaces, Moto is slow to innovate, and the battery life is something to be desired. Until rececently, I had owned Moto Cell Phones for 4 years(split by one year with a Nokia). The first one I had for Cingular was great. Great reception, large display, clear numbers, backlight, and data connection. Then I got a Vader v60. It was very tiny (something I like), you could compose ringtones (something important to me), and it took standardized accessories. Battery life in about 3 months dropped to about 30 minutes talk time 4 hours standby (tested with two pnones after trade ins and different batteries).

      All that said, Nokias have cool games, so many accessories and addons it's almost hard to fathom. BUT, they get VERY poor reception across the board. My Mitsubishi phone had great reception, great battery life, took standard home accessories, and was easy to navigate; but was basic and sorta heavy, not clunky like the "sattelite phone sized original analog Motos" but still clunky.

      The point is, every phone has it's problems. My current is a Sony Ericcson t68i, I like it more than any phone I have ever had. I just feel like I'm going to break it. Accessories are few and far between, and the neat features need refinement.

      As for Moto embedding Linux, this will only be of use if they can get full functionality of a small PC by using the PowerPC, iPod like size (with hard drive of iPod too), color screen, great battery life. Then, maybe if it can run some of the Mac emulators out there under it's Linux, like the Sharp Zaurus can, then that would be beyond useful, if not revelutionary.

    • Who cares what OS is running underneath if the software subjects you to hellish reams of menus and extra buttons when competing phones from Nokia or whoever just seem to work with a few clicks?

      You do get used to them, and they all have a quick-access menu for the most common functions, although I agree they're a real pain when you want to do something that's not on the quick-access menu. The most recent Motorola phones have improved a heck of a lot though, to the point where they're better than most Ericssons at least (5 submenus to divert all calls on a T39! 5!), even if they're not quite up to Nokia's (or Samsung's - very impressed with their menu system) standards.

      The supposed problem with them was that their GSM development team was a bit low-priority until recently, because GSM wasn't big in the US... their US TDMA, CDMA and iDEN phones have always been better. Of course that's changing now given the move towards GSM in the US, and surprise surprise, their GSM phones are getting easier to use.

      One nice thing about Motorolas is that their software has always been rock-solid stable, unlike some Finnish manufacturers...

  • It could be interesting and could lure more coders (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rusty spoon ( 564695 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:49AM (#5293860) Homepage
    Speaking as a Windows developer (and before I get flamed I've also spent ~3 years developing on unix...but to help the flaming; I *loved* vi ;-)) working on consumer software...

    I think this could be a little more interesting than most "linux on [insert device here]" announcments.

    It's fair to say that as mobile devices get more powerful more people will be 'using' computers and not really knowing it. Email, web browsing and other such 'internet' activities could very easily be used by computer-phobic(?) people by way of their mobile phone.

    The idea that we (software companies) could gain more market with these non-computer-users is interesting. Having a basic platform that is usable on the desktop, PDAs *and* mobile phones makes development cheaper and easier in the long run. It's one of the reasons that Pocket-PC is interesting - it's effectively a recompile from a (native unicode) Win2K/XP application and you then have PPC (okay, so there are limitations and differences but you get the idea).

    If Linux does get everywhere as is indicated then I would have more incentive to code my consumer software for Linux - and let's be honest; More consumer-friendly software for Linux means a wider general acceptance of Linux.

    Please don't suggest java as an alternative cross platform development tool because it's not.

    Personally, and from a user perspective, I'd love to see my products on my mobile phone as well as use my mobile phone as a general purpose PDA. It would be very cool. Throw in a 20GB hard drive, and make the batteries last more than 2 hours, and I'd be very happy ;-)
  • "We expect Linux to continue to be a niche opportunity," said Alex Slawsby, IDC's analyst for smart handhelds. "It will be in the rear."

    Somehow, "Linux in the rear" doesn't sound like the war cry some are looking for.

  • Telemarketing Solution? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Root Down ( 208740 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @08:51AM (#5293873) Homepage
    Does that mean I can send all those telemarketing calls to /dev/null instead of waiting to get my name on the no-call list? Cuz that'd be sweet.
  • Nowadays more and more companies sell various soluions based on Linux. Many of there include modifications to the kernel. Where's the source?
    As far as I understand, they are required to provide the source to their customers, and they're can not prohibit by any means redistribution of the source by the customers.

    But I have yet to see a website download section with source. What's happening? Do all those companies act as if the code was in public domain , or BSD-type licensed? What the hell??

    The only thing MontaVista's site offers for download is some preview kit. It is an ISO image (uncompressed!!), "encrypted" by some stupid password which gets mailed once you fill out a ridiculously long form on their website and requires Flash 5 to run.
    I'm downloading it right now, but I'm more than sure there ain't a trace of source to linux source there.

    Have anybody got any GPL-d source from them? What holds you from putting it up on the web?

    Come on, this shit shouldn't have begun to happen in the first place.

    • Just be happy someone is using your beloved arcane OS to begin with.

      You do bring up a good point though. I imagine that in the future a LOT of companies will be using Linux in their products. This will create two different factions.

      1. Companies who publicly declare Linux is in their product and provide the source immediately (or sometimes after some prodding from the hairy bastard RMS)

      2. Companies who covertly use Linux in their products without telling a soul. The only way we the public will discover this is due to the occasional goof or screwup that exposes the code for all to see. But that will be a rare occourance. These "parasite" companies will continue to feed off of the free development of Linux for as long as they can without contributing anything back to the project.

      Personally I don't have a problem with group #2. I mean what can you honestly expect when you give away something for free? You think a silly license is going to stop anyone from using it inappropriately? Do proprietary EULA's stop software pirates? No they don't. So what power over the truly unscrupulous do you think the GPL will have?
  • Even though this is a simple question. and probably the most obvious one of all. I still havent been able to find much answers.

    How, given the nature of the copyleft that the GPL enforces, can a company keep they're code closed.

    Unless motorola doesnt even care about it source? im sure that its figured out the answer to my question above.
  • Ok , perhaps I'm being slightly sarcastic but IF they decide to make the phone into a handheld computer too then the opportunites to hack it could be quite large especially if it runs TCP/IP over the phone network. Ok , this can happen already with handheld computers but people who use them tend to be a bit more tech savvy and almost expect something nasty to happen. Joe and Flo Sixpack however won't have a clue and won't understand what it means to have their phone "owned" or "rooted". Imagine a virus running on the cellphone system.... nasty...
  • This certainly seems interesting, having also political consequences discussed above, but my understanding is that only a single process will execute on these mobile phones: the Java(tm) interpreter.

    Rationale: Licencing Symbian or Windows (whatizzit? Mobile Edition?) for a mobile phone may shorten the development cycle, but a) it costs real money (with per-unit charges) and b) you give up control of your platform. With all solutions you will need to code support for your extra gadgets (e.g. the camera, keypad circuitry, LCD screen, battery status, and let's not forget the basics: GSM chipsets). Since the phone will use Java, it will need to support the MIDP, therefore the interpreter will need to have access to these features anyway. So, why code your OS (as in, what the user will see on the display) in native code when you can use Java?

    I'm currently planning to buy an Ericsson T800 when they'll be available where I live (Greece); I'd buy a Motorola phone if I could get my hands on all the source and java classfiles (the decompiler is your fried, together with the global search-and-replace - think unobfuscation). However, I don't expect I'll get the source for the more nifty features of the phones....

    (Posting this using a laptop to an Ericsson T39 to the 4.0-second-round-trip-time GPRS network.)

    • Re:Probably no user-space programs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @11:52AM (#5295111) Homepage
      I'd buy a Motorola phone if I could get my hands on all the source and java classfiles (the decompiler is your fried, together with the global search-and-replace - think unobfuscation). However, I don't expect I'll get the source for the more nifty features of the phones....
      Well if you go to Motorola's development site, you can get your hands on the SDK to develop Java apps to run on the phone just fine! I do (along with the Nokia, Sprint and Siemens toolkits for Java). In actual fact, most of the Motorola phones currently only support MIDP1.0, so you could just develop using the basic Sun toolkit.

      If you want to develop Java I'd really suggest Nokia or Siemens though - as they have the best API extensions for accessing the phone-specific features (sound, vibration, media playback, extended image methods etc) - AND they are listening to developers! As mentioned, Nokia now have a dev environment for Linux, and Siemens have fixed the changes they made to the MIDP spec that caused so many problems (eg, the bug that caused images to re-scale if loaded using the standard API, but not if you used the Siemens-only extension).
  • The article talks about MontaVista, but they just purchased Lineo's Embeddix assets.

    Kind of weird

  • Market Share (Score:3, Informative)

    by rbeattie ( 43187 ) <russ@russellbeattie.com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:13AM (#5293980) Homepage
    I think what Motorola is doing is smart - like the article said, by using Linux/Java they're controlling their own destiny a bit more. The part that I don't understand is that Motorola is part owner of Symbian [symbian.com]. It seems to me that they would want to promote that platform instead of going off in a different direction entirely.

    But if you just ignore that for a sec, I think choosing Linux is the right thing to do from a power/scalability perspective. Symbian, for example, was designed from the ground up to run on mobile devices. But since these devices are now becoming more and more powerful (like a circa 1995 laptop) you're going to need an OS that can take advantage of that power in an open way and I'll vote Linux any day (like all the rest of you, I'm sure).

    Think about this: Motorola (and Nokia) are both going to sell around 400 million smart phones in 2003. Even if a very small percentage of these phones initially use Linux, it will still mean millions of Linux "installs". Motorola could soon be the #1 Linux computing platform.

    If you check out Motorola's home page, you'll also see that they've launched a reference platform for OEMs called i.Smart to base their mobile phones on also. According to this article on InfoSync.no [infosync.no], this will allow OEMs to create smart phones in as little as 90 days with support for Symbian, eLinux, Windows CE or PalmOS. This is pretty cool, but what is disappointing is the complete lack of WCDMA/CDMA2000 (i.e. 3G) support in either the A760 or the i.Smart reference design. They need to just pay Qualcomm some ransom money and get on board the CDMA train, IMHO.

    I've got lots more thoughts about this. From what I've seen so far, I can't tell if Motorola is going to follow Sharp's example and make the Java Apps peers with the native apps using Personal Java, or whether they'll restrict the functionality and use J2ME, which keeps Java apps in a tightly controlled sandbox. That could really make a difference in the number of apps available and usability also.

    Anyways, cool news to see.

    -Russ

  • This reminds me of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

    He describes how Einstein and other scientists spent a great deal of time looking outwards, at the largest things - the far reaches of space. Now we have returned to look at the smallest things, quantum physics.

    Linux is working to get into the high end computing as well as the smallest parts. We have a unified Linux kernel!

  • Irrelevant! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:42AM (#5294158)
    I'm getting tired of stories like this and "Home Depot to use Linux in cash registers." First, we're just talking about the Linux kernel and some device drivers. We're not talking about X11, bash, a window manager, KDE, Mesa, or anything like that. Just a kernel and some device drivers.

    This has nothing to do with the general "popularity" of Linux. Test time: Name any of the 10+ other operating systems used in embedded devices? Can't name them? Exactly.

    There's getting to be a more than a little annoying "Linux is the only operating system and should be used in everything from PCs to microwaves" rally. Doesn't that sound a whole lot like what Microsoft has been saying since the mid 1990s?

    • Re:Irrelevant! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by josh crawley ( 537561 )
      I know, I've been saying the same thing. Then I get hit with a Troll.

      ---This has nothing to do with the general "popularity" of Linux. Test time: Name any of the 10+ other operating systems used in embedded devices? Can't name them? Exactly.

      1: QNX
      2: Engineer programming group #1
      3: Engineer programming group #2
      (and so on)

      That's the last thing you want for embedded stuff is an OS. Unless it's an RTos, you just dont use it. Usually, in embedded programming, you first design a flowchart (along with specs req'd) for your system. Then you find components that match the spec AND are most cost efficent. Then you start coding. It's either ASM(in the assembly of the chip you're working with) or C. If you need tight code (say your chip only has 16k onboard ram), you go with asm. Either that or buy a chip with more ram. You almost never want to buy ram chips. Raises devel costs too high.

      ---There's getting to be a more than a little annoying "Linux is the only operating system and should be used in everything from PCs to microwaves" rally. Doesn't that sound a whole lot like what Microsoft has been saying since the mid 1990s?

      I use whatever works. For a while, I used Windows cause it supplied what I needed (and linux wasnt very good). Now I do more programming and "hacking" I use a system that shows its underbelly (linux). If windows did this, i might still be on it. For my PDA, I use a TI-86 graphing calculator. It has 90k ram which for me, is plenty enough for a shell, games, and a basic PIM. And it does complex math too ;-) When I get home, I can upload my PIM to my computer.

      What pisses people off is saying I USE WHAT WORKS.

    • Re:Irrelevant! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bstadil ( 7110 )
      This has nothing to do with the general "popularity" of Linux

      Go over here [killefiz.de]and look at the breath of software that has become available for the Zaurus in a very short timespan.

      Most of this is a port of already existing software made for other platforms. The reason is the underlaying Linux kernel. Had the Zaurus been based on QNX even with QT support we would not have seen near the amount of SW. (Check the nifty Audrey [audreyhacking.com] based on QNX as an example of the latter)

    • linux IS a kernel, silly! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Xtifr ( 1323 )
      First, we're just talking about the Linux kernel and some device drivers.

      And that's what Linux is. A kernel. This might be one of the rare cases where everyone agrees we can leave off the "GNU/" at the beginning, so just hush up! :)

      This has nothing to do with the general "popularity" of Linux.

      It has everything to do with the general popularity of Linux. Name five other kernels that scale from cell-phones to super-clusters.

      "Linux is the only operating system and should be used in everything from PCs to microwaves" rally. Doesn't that sound a whole lot like what Microsoft has been saying since the mid 1990s?

      The big difference is that Linus isn't trying to leverage his desktop monopoly into control of cell-phones and super-clusters. He's just offering his software up to the world, and letting the world make its own choices. Moreover, Linus isn't saying, "here's my system, you should use it everywhere," he's saying, "here's my system, if you like, you can adapt it to fit your needs," and people are responding, "oh cool, look, I can adapt it to fit here...and here...and here...."

      But the biggest difference is that Linus isn't saying "use my software to run your cell-phone and super-cluster, or I'll do everything in my power to lock your system out of talking to my desktop."

  • Had it coming (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Britz ( 170620 )
    I've following the OS debate for smartphones for a couple years now, because I am from Europe an seemingly everyone wants a cellphone and smartphone technology eventually trickles down to normal phones as well.
    This means that the number of phones (and therefore of OSs on them) will soon surpass or is already bigger than the number of PCs. Any OS that will dominate that market will have the biggest installer base of all OSs in the world and will sell more licences than MS.
    The most interesting event was when Psion gave up its control of their embedded OS called Epox and now shares control with Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola. The new name is Symbian.
    Motorola is the only one that for some reason still can't make up its mind how to power their smartphones and has been trying j2me for a while now. Siemens and Samsung got on the Symbian train last year.

    The problem with Symbian is that it is still very unstable on some phones which is the reason why they don't give out kits for the P800. Many apps seem to stall the system.

    Imagine writing a killer app for an OS that dominates the mobile market. Symbian is pretty new and still doesn't have many of the most basic app written for it. Any future Bill Gates readings this?
    Good Luck! If Symbian will ever turn out to dominate. And the chances are still pretty high.

  • Sooo.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sacarino ( 619753 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:45AM (#5294170) Homepage
    Our concern is about making the best experience for developers. We feel it's going to be the developer experience that drives these devices, not the operating system itself," Kaim said.

    Uh, so let me get this straight.

    What he really said was "Even though Microsoft is aware our software products may be bloated and massive memory hogs, the fact that developers have a really neat toy to utilize these systems is what will make our device the leading one."

    I get that right?
  • The one-two punch of "free" and "open source" translate into benefits for just about anyone. But most importantly the embedded market doesn't require 3rd party developers, nor does it require large installed user base. Those two issues are irrelevant for that market, thus some of the traditional Linux drawbacks are moot for them. This makes Linux a very logical choice.

  • "easy time" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:54AM (#5294248)
    But in the market for powerful "smart" phones, Linux won't have an easy time duking it out with earlier arrivals from Microsoft, Palmsource and the Symbian consortium, a group that includes Motorola, IDC analyst Alex Slawsby said.

    Technically, this should be a no-brainer. PalmOS is effectively a 16bit platform dedicated to organizer functions, with other uses as an afterthought; and Palm is currently in transition between PalmOS4 and PalmOS6 anyway, two very different architectures. Microsoft's phone platform is the usual bloated, buggy, messy stuff we have come to expect from them. Only Symbian is pretty decent, but it is proprietary. The Linux APIs (i.e., UNIX/POSIX) have a three decade history. They are mature and scalable to small devices, and Linux itself is as well. And huge numbers of programmers know the Linux APIs.

    By 2006, IDC believes Symbian will have increased its market share in powerful phones to 53 percent from its current 46 percent. Microsoft will have about 27 percent of the market, with Palm at 10 percent. IDC predicts that Linux could take as much as 4.2 percent.

    I see: the reason why Linux will have a hard time is because we say so.

    "It's more efficient to work with (Linux) because there are more modules we won't have to develop ourselves." [...] "By using Linux instead of Symbian or Windows, they are in control of their own upgrade cycle,"

    Seems like Motorola really has their act together. Good to see. If they deliver on their promises, my next phone is likely going to be from Motorola.

  • I don't think so (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A year ago, I was working on Motorola's primary phones. In fact, I worked on the v60, v120, and a couple others.

    There is no way in hell I think that Motorola will use Linux on most phones....maybe the high-powered ones. I won't name any specifics out of fear of breaking confidentiality, however their current phones operate a real-time OS on a microprocessor that is roughly fast as a 80386. Flash ROM storage was less than 16mb, and RAM was less than a megabyte. Real-time tasks had to respond to an interrupt in less than a microsecond for certain things.

    Sure, they can build a phone that runs Linux. However not without fuel-cell technology to power them. Linux will have to run as a separate task in a real-time kernel. And to do so will require a more powerful processor which of course requires more either a much-larger lithium ion battery, or something revolutionary like fuel cells.

    • I think so (Score:3, Insightful)

      by marm ( 144733 )

      Linux will have to run as a separate task in a real-time kernel. And to do so will require a more powerful processor which of course requires more either a much-larger lithium ion battery, or something revolutionary like fuel cells.

      Or a more efficient but faster processor. You've heard of Moore's Law right? Use a smaller feature size, maximum clock speed goes up, power consumption goes down. These phones are going to have to be more powerful anyway, they're going to be expected to drive colour displays that can play video and run Java games at decent speeds. If you've got a processor that can do that then the extra overhead of RTLinux or RTAI or LXRT to give you sub-microsecond interrupt response is pretty minimal.

      Note that Symbian is only available on high-end phones right now too, but it's expected to trickle down to the lower-end once the processors, memory and screens that can handle its requirements become cheaper. Symbian isn't really any lighter than a properly-stripped Linux anyway, it needs at least 8MB RAM to be properly usable and prefers a lot more.

  • ...until one of these becomes my old cellphone. You won't have much of the standard Linux functionality exposed. Most of Linux's POSIX compliance is done through glibc, which may not be onboard the phone.

    However... it'd be fun to hack around on an old Linux phone.

  • A few hints... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @11:41AM (#5295013)
    Remember that Motorola owns Metrowerks. Metrowerks just recently bought Embedix, the company that formerly was Lineo. That means Motorola now controls a major chunk of embedded Linux intellectual property. Yes, lots of it is GPL, but Lineo also developed a lot of their own IP around the Linux platform that Motorola can now leverage.
  • I bought the new motorolla flip phone T720 and the damn thing kept locking up on me everyday. It stunk. I never did like motorollas becouse the interface stinks and to lock the keypad you have to use both hands.

    I alwayed loved Nokia. I traded my motorola and bought the 6590 and love it. It was $100 cheaper and crashed on me a few times. but never during a call!

    I want to hear about you phone crashes experiances. Do I just have bad luck, or it just normal to reboot once a day?

    Also I'll comment on the motorolla T720, the cool java games that come with it are DEMOs!!! You have to pay for the ful version!

  • Apparently (Score:3, Funny)

    by Now15 ( 9715 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @12:36PM (#5295535) Homepage
    Apparently this phone is so clever that if your wife calls when you're with your mistress, the phone will kernel panic.

  • its not about popularity (Score:2, Interesting)

    by t0ny ( 590331 )
    The problem with current cell phones is that the OS needs to be custom written, and, as many past articles point out, there are tons of bugs and security holes in the hastily-written OS.

    By switching to an established OS, like Linux or MS's new phone OS, they can by-pass the problem of writing a new OS, maintaining it, testing it, etc.

    I would say the switch to Linux is more a financial one, as Motorola hasnt been on the money-making end of things for quite a while (RISC processors losing out to Intel, Apple probably going over to Intel, losing the cell phone wars to Nokia, etc). Since there is about zero cost using Linux as their base platform, they can bypass the royalty fees to MS, and increase their profit per phone. Or they could just charge less per phone, but I would imagine they are more interesting in profit per phone than volume sales.

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