Trolltech predicts first open Linux phones in 2007
Published:08-September-2006
By BR staff writer
Mobile Linux application platform vendor Trolltech ASA predicts that the first phones running an open version of the OS, to which native apps can be downloaded, will appear in 2007.
At the moment a number of handset manufacturers make Linux phones, the most high-profile being Motorola Inc, but those devices use Java as the application mechanism. However, Karsten Homann, VP of professional services for the Oslo, Norway-based Trolltech, said his company expects to see "open phones, to which native Linux apps will be downloadable, next year."
Haavard Nord, CEO of Trolltech, said this is a key development for mobile Linux because "without openness you're not playing to the strengths of Linux, which is its developer community." Java is good for enabling cross-platform access to applications, but it also has more limited functionality in other respects, for instance it can't access memory. In addition, Hoffmann said, "most JVMs are single-app engines, such that if they open one, they can't access another. Indeed, one of the leading JVM developers, Esmertec, make much of the fact that its product can run two Java apps concurrently." The Trolltech execs declined to speculate as to which manufacturer will be first to market with an open Linux phone.
Motorola's Greg Besio, corporate VP for mobile devices software, said his company plans to open some of its products in 2007, but Homann said it could be beaten to the punch by a Chinese manufacturer whose smaller volumes and more relaxed attitude to IPR would make it easier to take a risk by offering open Linux.
There undoubtedly is a risk involved, of course, and just as vulnerabilities are found on Linux in the wired world, so embedded Linux in mobile phones can also expect to be probed for potential exploits. Trolltech moved to address this issue earlier this year with the inclusion in version 4.0 of its Qtopia platform of a technology called Safe Execution Environment, SXE, which is effectively "sandboxing for native apps," said Nord. "It gives Linux the ability to confine and control an app, blocking file system or database access, or withholding the ability to start new processes."
While predicting open Linux phones will appear next year, Homann conceded that they may start out only partially open, with operators limiting downloads to apps from their own portals, or perhaps blocking apps' access to the function for placing a call. "Openness will come in steps, as it did with Symbian and Windows," he said. "Series 60 [Symbian] phones started out offering only the ability to download only a limited number of games, whereas now they're giving full file system access."
