Today David Beers has begun what is hopefully going to be a series of interviews with developers in the mobile computing world. His first installment highlights Marty Fouts, a Linux kernel developer who was with PalmSource until earlier this month serving as technical representative to the open-source community.
He discusses some very interesting topics, although many specifics are off limits because of a non-disclosure agreement with PalmSource that is still in effect.
Here are some interesting excerpts to whet your appetite...
-- "PalmOS is pretty much a dead end now."
-- "I still think the two players to watch are Access, with NetFront, and Nokia with Maemo." By NetFront he means "the existing Access product and their model of using a web-like interface as the GUI for all applications"
-- "Linux isn't really special as a mobile device OS. In fact, it needs a lot of work to become a good OS for constrained devices."
-- "BSD was technically very superior to Linux"
-- "In the end, you either have to have a single dominant Linux-for-embedded distribution, or no one will be able to make money selling linux."
-- "... a 'smartphone' or any other PDA-like device isn't a "real" embedded system. It's just a general purpose computer that's been shrunk."
Granted, these comments might have a bit more shock value when taken out of context like this, but surely it gives you plenty of incentive to read
the full interview! Kudos to David and Marty for some great material.
By the way,
Software Everywhere -- David Beers on Mobile Computing is an excellent blog with a heavy dose of Palm related information and speculation. David himself describes the blog as "Thoughts on mobile technology, software development, and the future of computing from veteran Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Java developer David Beers."
Other recent articles discuss topics like integration of PalmOS and Access' NetFront, and Hacking Linux onto Palm devices. It a site well worth bookmarking or adding to your RSS feed list.
David has been an excellent participant in many great discussions on PalmOS in various forums and it is very nice to have people like him in our mobile computing community. And, of course, we are also proud of the fact that he is also a fan of MobileRead!