Recently the mobile phone market has undergone a radical transformation with an explosion of open source initiatives and projects. Here is a brief description of some of them.
Providing both the hardware and software, this is by far the most 'open' of all the mobile projects. Not only is the software totally open source and completely customizable, the CAD files for the physical phone are avaliable as well.
Unfortunately this phone is really only for the uber geek, since its primary value is in customizability and openness. If those aren't your main concerns, you can get a lot more for less.
Created by Google for the Open Handset Alliance, Android provides what Google calls a complete mobile platform. This means that it comes with all the software needed for a mobile phone, from the kernel to the core libraries to the basic applications.
In addition to the basic Android system, the are already quite a few third party applications built, due to Google releasing the SDK early and then running the developer challange. You can find many of these early applications at helloandroid, and if you want help building you own you can visit anddev.
Aside from the current lack of actual phones, the biggest problem with Android is their implementation of Java. Instead of sticking to a Java standard, which would have allowed for possible cross-compatibility with many existing applications, they went and created their own virtual machine called Dalvik. For the reason see this article.
As opposed to Android, the LiMo Platform does not come with any applications whatsoever. Instead, each handset manufacturer is responsible for creating all their own applications, from the most basic onward. This means that the software on LiMo phones from different manufacturers will be unique in appearance and even function.
While there is currently no SDK for the LiMo Platform, the APIs are avaliable and well documented, and the SDK is slated to come out late 2008. There are also about a dozen phones already avaliable running the LiMo Platform.
The main issue that the LiMo Foundation has is a lack of a public following and hype. While Android and Openmoko are leveraging the power of community, LiMo seems to be relying solely on the will and desire of the Foundation's companies to use LiMo for purely technical reason. In other words, no one is clamoring for LiMo and very few third parties are writing software for it.
After all the other open source excitment, Nokia bought Symbian and announced the new Foundation which would set it free. Despite the publicity stunt feeling this gives me, most tech news sites are at the least hopeful about the new Symbian Foundation.
Because I don't really know all the details, I am just going to link to some of the more informative news articles.
First Symbian Foundation handsets due in 2010 (zdnet). Link.
Nokia buys Symbian, will open Symbian OS (linux.com). Link.
Other Important Articles
Android vs LiMo: What's the difference? Link.
Crossing the chasm with Android: Can we view disruptive initiatives like Android in the context of the existing value chain? (This is a detailed and slightly hard to read analysis of the mobile market and how android might affect change). Link.
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