John Dorsey notes that Trolltech has open sourced Qtopia, their platform for Linux-based mobile phones. Trolltech seems have to have taken open source seriously as it had earlier open sourced Qt, which powers KDE. The proprietary version was always a point of contention in the open source world.
Now Trolltech has not only open sourced it, but even OpenMoko’d it! OpenMoko, along with its open hardware platform, is an iPhone antidote, and goes to the other extreme by inviting users to hack into it. The Qtopia Phone Edition has a suite of messaging and collaboration applications and boost usability and applicability of the OpenMoko platform.
This is significant because I think this can one of the significant steps towards opening up the mobile platforms. Mobiles are what desktops were a decade back. Platforms are proprietary, applications are not interoperable and the development is controlled by the companies. Which is why they cannot replace my laptop today. Once opened up it can boost innovation and bring standardization in the mobile world and truly make them capable of replacing other portables. Looking forward towards an opened up mobile world!
September 21st, 2007 at 10:23 am
Yes it is going to happen very soon.i am sure about it.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:00 pm
I hope you are right indyank
January 29th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
[...] interesting aspect of this deal will be that Nokia will own open source products, since Qt and Qtopia, both are open sourced. Nokia has been releasing Linux phones, but owning open source development [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 6:33 pm
The Openmoko Freerunner will be available for Rs 15399/- inclusive of tax and shipping for the first few customers in May. http://www.idasystems.net