1. Service Provider Mobility: Open Source in
Mobile - Part I
Posted by David Almstrom Sep 21, 2009
Open Source in mobile phones and devices are becoming increasingly popular and hyped.
All and everyone but Microsoft seems to go and use open source: Nokia, Motorola, Google,
SonyEricsson, Samsung, LGE, HTC, China Mobile, etc. etc.
I attended OSiM in Amsterdam for a day (had to be back to China the next day) and it was
quite an interesting and diverse crowd attending and/or speaking - hard core open sourcers
along with big fat OEMs trying to leverage open source to make the most of it. In the first
Open Source in Mobile blog, I'll make an overview of alternatives for building devices
using open source software. Apart from Windows Mobile, all software stacks being used in
Smartphones are now open sources.
Symbian
The absolutely largest and most complete open source software package comes from
Symbian. Without seeing the final version of Symbian^2, I am confident in that this will
be the most complete open source software package for mobile phones and also the one
that will ship the most (thanks to Nokia using it on all their N-series and Symbian-based
devices in 2010). After Nokia's acquisition of Symbian, Symbian Foundation was created
and Nokia contributed their assets related to Symbian to the Foundation and Lee Williams
was recruited from Nokia to head up the Foundation.
Symbian^2 package is a full phone solution based on selected ARM-based chipsets and
baseband modems.
Sofar, Nokia, SonyEricsson and Samsung are shipping phones with Symbian and NTT
DoCoMo is gearing up for a Japanese package based on Symbian^2 along with the
preferred phone suppliers.
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2. Service Provider Mobility: Open Source in Mobile - Part I
Android
Definitely the most talked about open source solution for mobile devices is Android, a result
of a few acquisitions from Google where they are using a number of Google software to
create a mobile phone platform along with the Open Handset Alliance for a final solution.
It is only HTC that has shipped a Google-certified phone in the market and there a few
chinese companies that created devices that ships on the open-source model but there is
a lot of momentum around Android. Samsung, LGE and Motorola have all announced that
they have phones that will be shipping this year. There were rumors also that HTC had a
one year exclusivity deal to be the only one to be Google certified. And a lot of the value
associated with Android comes with the right to include Google services with the related
Google revenue share.
Google itself focuses solely on creating Android for mobile phones and developed its
solution based on Linux and have lateley opened up some of the internal native APIs for
developers but the main SDK for developer is based on Dalvik - Java-based virtual machine.
The package from Android is not nearly as complete as Symbian but it obviously has a lot of
potential.
China Mobile took the Android version and developed OMS - its own OS to be used for edge
and TD-SCDMA phones in China. Dell and HTC have been expected to ship for the last
couple of months but the first phone has yet to hit the shelfs.
Beyond that, Archos announced an Android tablet; set-top-boxes in Japan and Taiwan being
developed and even Car systems being considered.
The appeal for Android is not only the Google backing (that gives credibility) but mainly the
stable UI system along with the developer friendly SDK and sandboxing.
ChromeOS
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3. Service Provider Mobility: Open Source in Mobile - Part I
Google though confused the market by revealing its plans to launch ChromeOS for netbooks
- a browser centric Linux OS delivering Google-cloud services but with an ability to run
services/applications off-line via Google Gears.
As much has not been told yet, I just bringing up as this will have some impact next year.
First devices expected to ship summer 2010.
LiMo
Vodafone along with a couple of OEMs created LiMo Foundation in 2007 with the aim to
develop an LGPL based mobile phone stack. Contrary to Android, the efforts are committee
driven where each member contributes development to the stack.
The first real LiMo phone still awaits to see the day of light but recently the rumors has that
Samsung that they will ship a LiMo based phone to Vodafone. See Linuxdevices and GSM
Dome.
As they name suggested, the stack is Linux based with a lot of open source software
(WebKit, Gstreamer, GTK, etc.). LiPS merged in with LiMO as Orange tended to be left
alone in the development efforts on LiPS.
Moblin
Moblin is being promoted and supported heavily by Intel and is not really a mobile phone
platform as it is focused on Netbooks and MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices). Intel has aligned
a lot of OSVs and ODMs/OEMs to support the Moblin Ecosystem and develop the solution.
Intel took a step further in Moblin 2 that is now a near-to-complete stack that is ready to ship
and Intel actively worked to unify the Linux netbook market. Novell, Ubuntu, Xandros and
many other OSVs have ported their solution to Moblin.
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4. Service Provider Mobility: Open Source in Mobile - Part I
Moblin UI is a combination of Clutter and GTK on a Linux OS. Intel also joined forces with
Nokia to develop Ofono, an open source phone stack which implies that Moblin later will
have phone capabilities beyond Skype and VoIP/WiFi.
Maemo
Nokia also announced yet another open source based platform for mobiles: Maemo on
N900, which is continuous development from N800 and N810. GTK-based but moving to
use Qt in the next Maemo SDK release.
Maemo is partly released and so far only one other brand has shipped a product with
Maemo. It remains to be seen how Nokia will release Maemo to the open source community
but Nokia has actively worked with and engaged the community to use the best-in-breed
open source software.
Palm's WebOS
Palm is not releasing their WebOS under any open source license but leveraging Open
Source to build their OS. Based on Linux, they have developed their APIs and Toolkit to be
integrated with WebKit to deliver a Web-enabled OS.
Tools in Open Source in Mobile
Common to all these Open Source implementations is the use of WebKit, which also Apple
is using for iPhone with the exception of Maemo/Moblin (Mozilla).
For UI toolkit, either GTK or Qt have been used in the past. GTK was previously prevailant
(LiMo, Moblin, Maemo, etc.) mainly because the use of LGPL where as Qt was only GPL
or commercially available. But with Nokia's change in licensing, Qt is also available under
LGPL and I have seen a shift towards Qt from GTK lately.
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5. Service Provider Mobility: Open Source in Mobile - Part I
Gstreamer for Linux is extremely popular for delivering multimedia service in Linux. BlueZ for
Bluetooth, etc. etc.
Personally, I see a few of these open source solutions diminish overtime. I believe that GTK
will be marginalized in favor for Qt. I think that Android, Symbian and Maemo will be three
strong open source alternatives for mobile computing (smartphones, smartbooks, MIDs,
netbooks) along with Windows Mobile and iPhone.
Next blog, I will share my experience in creating devices with open source software and the
benefits of using Open Source and I will do that from a software provider's perspective.
932 Views Tags: smartphones, qt, open_source, limo, android, moblin, maemo
Sep 22, 2009 2:06 PM Kittur Nagesh
Thanks David for the very useful summary on a critical topic. Was the discussion mostly
aroud client OS and client API? Was there any discussion on network APIs, where the
network would expose federated services such as location, policy preferences, etc.
Open APIs on both the client and the network side will catapult the application development
and interoperability to the next level.
Finally, can you tell us which operators participated, esp North American operators.
Thanks again!
Nagesh
Sep 22, 2009 8:56 PM David Almstrom Kittur Nagesh in response to
Nagesh,
I will go deeper into the use of APIs/OS later. But to answer your question - this was mainly
client API/OS related. Not so much about opening up and developing OSS for network and
network API.
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6. Service Provider Mobility: Open Source in Mobile - Part I
I agree with your comment. I believe Nokia is trying to go towards that direction (and so is
Google) but with Open Source, Google nor Nokia would be able to limit how e.g. operators
or service providers are modifying those APIs, etc.
There were no North American operators there (at least not speaking). Orange as always
was there.
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