MeeGo
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Look at that – there’s a new project out there, doing client Linux for devices, mobile and otherwise. With a focus on phones and netbooks and cool things like connected TVs and in vehicle infotainment (i.e., nav systems that can also play DVDs and surf the web – preferably not by the driver, while driving… but I digress).
So MeeGo has just been launched, the website is still under development and has quite a few spots that are waiting for content, but what is clear is where the project comes from and where it is going.
maemo and Moblin have been around for a while. They are both shipping on products; maemo on phones like the Nokia N900, Moblin on a bunch of Netbooks from Dell, Samsung, MSI and others – delivered through OSVs like Novell or Canonical. They both have track record as solid and competent and innovative. And they are actually quite similar in many of the underlying ideas. Which is a good sign, if you think about it.
But why merge them? Aren’t major mergers always a bad thing (cue the music from the Daimler / Chrysler horror movie). Well it’s not the corporations that are merging. It’s the open source projects that are combining forces. And that’s a good thing. There are too many projects doing the same thing over and over again. Having two of them that are well aligned get together and take the best from both sides to create something that’s even better is promising.
What will this mean in detail? Well, there’s a lot more that will have to be published by the Moblin and maemo leadership teams, but it seems that we will see a base OS that is largely built around the Moblin infrastructure, including fast and flicker free boot, non-root X, connman, etc. And the Qt-based application development environment that maemo has been migrating to. Add to that the experience in building operating systems for phones and netbooks and many other new devices and you have an interesting mix.
The first actual release won’t happen until the second quarter, it seems. But I guess we need to give the teams some time to actually get the details figured out. I’m excited.
My usual disclosure: I work for Intel, so some might conclude that I’m biased. But this is my blog, not an Intel blog. So what you read here are my thoughts, not those of my employer.
