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Originally Posted by dwig
One route would be for Palm to strip their OS down to the very basic kernal targeting it for devices with embedded OS's that are hidden from users.
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Palmsource makes an operating system. They do not write kernels (well, they don't
want to write kernels). They don't want to license a third-party kernel either, especially one that is so targeted to very specific hardware requirements, that moving to another platform (MIPS, for example) would be a painful migration.
This is why moving their underlying hardware abstraction layer to Linux, with their OS sitting on top, makes perfect sense. Focusing their efforts on the parts of their product suite that are actually seen by users, the UI and interfaces, is where they can begin to shine. Right now, they're spread too thin between maintaining 3 different diverging OS variants on several different kinds of hardware platforms.
From there, moving that UI to other platforms that are
already running Linux, is an easy hop. This includes cash machines, mobile phones, printer interfaces, and other inter-connectivity devices. They also gain the enormous wealth of new toolkits that they can use at their disposal, to leverage that OS on top of the Linux kernel. This means gtk+, Qt and dozens of others. They also (potentially) gain the use of newer languages at runtime on their devices. Perl and Python on a Palmsource-powered PDA? Absolutely.
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Here, Palm is better off using a well established existing OS kernal and using there relatively limited resources in porting the Palm user experience. Apple found this the better route when they needed to replace their antique and cumbersome OS with something more adaptabe to changing processors, device interfaces, and communication protocols. Apple took that portion of the OS that users saw and put in on top of a more adaptable kernal.
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Palmsource is not using "Linux the OS", they are using "Linux the kernel" for their migration (unless they change their direction again). It keeps them focused on their main product, PalmOS.