From the ‘oooooooh what a surprise snicker ‘ files:
Two of the leading mobile Linux mobile standardization efforts are merging with LiPS (Linux Phone Standards) joining LiMO (Linux Mobile).
Well maybe merging is the wrong word since that might imply a union of equals. The wording used by LiPS in their press release is; “To support and to unify the growing momentum of Linux platforms in the global
mobile market, the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum announced that its
activities and membership will be folded into LiMo Foundation as of July, 2008.“
So LiPS folds. Frankly I’m not surprised, they’ve had trouble since the start IMHO.
“We welcome the LiPS member community into LiMo
Foundation, augmenting the momentum, resources and expertise of our group,“ said Morgan Gillis, executive director, LiMo Foundation said in a statement. “The international and cross-industry scope of LiPS
Forum helps LiMo greatly in the global rollout of our platform, devices
deploying that platform, and creation of applications for it.“
The collapse of LiPS is obviously related to the new pressure from Symbian going open source. With Nokia’s new open source mobile OS. play having a fragmented Linux mobile community is not a good idea. The LiPS LiMO mobile divide had split the Linux community in some ways. Not that long ago I wrote about one vendor in particular – Trolltech (now coincidentally owned by Nokia…) that had moved from LiPS to LiMO. Though there will still be a split with the new LiMO and Google’s Open Handset Alliance (Android).
Why the Linux Foundation itself can’t get off its own tail and organize groups into one super mobile Linux standard group is beyond my simple comprehension. Then again, greed and individual vendor interests always tend to be front and center.
Still I think it makes a lot of sense to bring LiPS/LiMO together – though their respective standards were both different it makes sense to bring as many of the mobile Linux players together as possible to help promote the common goal of mobile Linux.
