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PalmOS already runs on 4 separate underlying kernels, depending on the model of PalmOS device you happen to be running.
Moving that multiple-kernel foundation to the Linux kernel unifies that base, and expands the hardware platforms available to the OS, at zero cost to Palmsource's developers and budget lines.
From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense.
From a technical perspective, this makes perfect sense.
From a moral perspective, it will draw disagreement. Such is life.
Laurens is but one of over 500,000 PalmOS developers, and Laurens is very small game, compared to the larger PalmOS development shops out there (who are also embracing Linux and Open Source software in general, as a way to help deliver their software to a wider audience).
Just because Laurens decided to move his previous Java product which ran on multiple platforms, exclusively to a dying legacy platform, does not mean that everyone else who disagrees, is leading a "dying business model".
Besides, didn't you hear? Linux and FreeBSD are already dead. They must be, since they're only used in only a few hundred thousand commercial hardware vendor products, successfully, every day, to the tune of millions of dollars in sales and savings to the companies developing them.
Ever hear of Hewlett Packard? TiVO? Linksys? D-Link? Sweex? Cyclades? Synetic? A little company called IBM?
Every single one of these companies and hundreds of others directly use Linux in their consumer-level hardware products, including printers, routers, switches, modems, and hundreds of other applications. This doesn't even begin to count the number of Free Software (developed-on-Linux) software packages used in commercial products.
Palmsource is making a good move, and in the right direction. My hope is that they have the inertia and ability to embrace thier existing support base, to make it successful, without pissing off their existing developer community.
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