Mobile Linux gets serious

IT'S NO use founding the ultimate model for the mobile version of the Open source community if you don't make it easy for aficionados to write apps for the environment.

That's exactly why the Limo (Linux Mobile) foundation has apparently decided to allow Wind River deep into its midst.

Wind River can now lay claim to being on the forefront of being, "the first commercial Linux platform and tools provider in the Limo consortium."

Wind River's Jason Whitmire commented, "Historically the market for Linux-based mobile platforms has been highly fragmented, leading to unwarranted complexity and excessive development cycles, which ultimately slow time to market."

That's a very old argument which is up there with the discussion on whether the chicken or egg came first.

Crucially the Limo foundation has lots of key members. The list includes Motorola, NEC, DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung and Vodafone.

There's plenty of vested interests who'd love to see the Limo foundation do well -especialy since the Foundation is not a private company. µ