Motorola backs open source with java micro move

motorola has cranked up the importance of open source software for future mobile phone design by inviting the growing community of Java Micro Edition developers to establish a complete Java ME software stack for the mobile industry.

“We see industry fragmentation and proprietary software models as an obstacle to unharnessing the full power of innovation in the mobile Java ecosystem,” said Mark VandenBrink, senior director and chief platform architect, Motorola Mobile Devices business.

Motorola is one of a number of mobile phone companies including NEC, Panasonic and Samsung that have teamed up with operators NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone to drive the adoption of an open source Linux-based software platform for handsets. This group has agreed to work toward creating an open Linux-based software platform for mobile devices.

Initially, this means the joint development and marketing of an API specification, architecture, supporting source code-based reference implementation components and tools.

The handset player said it will work to align its future Java ME-based developments with Apache’s model of licensing and open governance in order to help promote a unified mobile Java platform.

Motorola joined the Eclipse open source community which supports the adoption of open-source embedded software and tools including Linux.

Originating in the IT community, Eclipse is emerging as an important open source community supported by many software developers in the embedded market.

Motorola is proposing an Eclipse Tools for mobile Linux (TmL) project that will support development of C++ applications targeting mobile devices.

The decision is seen as a significant endorsement for further use of the Linux open source operating system within the mobile handset market.

In one sense the open-source community passed a landmark in the summer when development tool company Wind River released of more than 300,000 lines of code to the Eclipse foundation of open-source software.

The software and tool supplier said its aim was to “make the restrictions associated with closed, proprietary developer tools a thing of the past”.

Chip companies are also riding the open-source wave only recently NXP, STMicroelectronics and IBM announced they were working on a EU-funded open source project to create a parallel processor architecture based on the Cell microprocessor.

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