Linux and mobile telephony [LWN.net]

Linux and mobile telephony

Posted Dec 10, 2002 14:27 UTC (Tue) by eru (subscriber, #2753)
In reply to: Linux and mobile telephony by jonth
Parent article: Linux and mobile telephony

I'm sure nobody ever suggested running Linux on a DSP or a "plain old"
mobile phone, but "smartphones" using a separate processor to run the
fancy features already exist on the market (at least here in Europe)
from most manufacturers, and they do need a fairly sophisticated OS.
So the development you outlined in your 3. paragraph has already happened
a while back.

But between the Symbian vs. Windows battle I don't see much opportunity
for Linux in the phone market :-(. Even source availability is this time
not a unique selling point, since Symbian licenses the code in source
form (I think there is a kind of "gated community" arrangement).
Interestingly, the availability of source code was one factor in the
well-known "defection" of Sendo (a phone maker) from the Microsoft
camp to Symbian.

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Linux and mobile telephony

Posted Dec 11, 2002 10:57 UTC (Wed) by jonth (subscriber, #4008) [Link]

It's true that developments using more sophisticated OSs have happened in multi-processor environments. It's just that I have yet to hear of anyone doing it with Linux as that OS.

And I tend to agree with you that Symbian and M$ have this one sewn up at the moment. Now, if someone did an Open Source implementation of the UMTS/GPRS stack, we'd be in business, but this is highly unlikely. It's way outside the scope of a 'bedroom' project, and it takes so much money to develop it needs a seriously rich company to be able to donate that level of development to the community.

Linux and mobile telephony

Posted Aug 1, 2003 2:46 UTC (Fri) by wumpus (guest, #13546) [Link]

Well... it could start with an open source implementation of the GSM stack, GPRS and friends can be added later on. It should be possible, before Linux noone ever thought a OS was within the scope of an OSD project, now it is, why wouldn't a GSM stack be?