More on Mobile Linux

Both the Open Handset Alliance and [the LiMo Foundation] leverage open source business models, and both rely on industry leaders to contribute market-proven technologies to open source community. Many of the players/members/founders are the same OEM and silicon companies in each camp to remain relevant to operators who narrow down to a single Linux platform, whichever they select.

LiMo and the Open Handset Alliance will likely both achieve many of their consortium goals in the market, avoiding a zero sum game. In fact, it doesn’t have to be that Open Handset Alliance is the exclusive platform for any OEM or carrier, or even exclusive Linux platform, but very clearly the open source counterbalance will be a LiMo compliant platform. Linux fragmentation still exists and will for some time Outside of the Linux world, however, competition from other platforms including Symbian and Microsoft is immense, intense, pervasive, and won’t sit idly by as the Open Handset Alliance and LiMo try to gain traction. For either partnership’s long term survival, its imperative that the two determine how to co-exist and even mutually benefit from one another at the expense of the non-Linux and fragmented Linux parties.

This is particularly interesting because it comes from Wind River, a member of both the Open Handset Alliance and the LiMo Foundation. Even more interesting is the fact that it was a long-time rival and opponent of mobile Linux, but afterwards saw the light, and is now an important promoter of the latter.