On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, nick may wrote:
> Enter Linux, which the carriers hope will cut dev/handset costs...
I wonder. It will certainly reduce royalties, but there are also some
downsides:
1. The linux kernel is not well suited to real-time embedded
systems. It's not terribly reliable in the first place, it has no
comprehensive testing framework, and has a lot of duplicated code.
2. There are interesting GPL issues here. It seems to me that giving
someone a phone is effectively giving them a copy of the object
code for the system, which means that under the GPL the distributor
is obliged to make a copy of the source code available as well.
This source code, under the GPL license, includes the source code
to any programs that are linked with it as well. People get pretty
slack about this, but I can imagine a competitor causing a lot of
disruption by suing a handset manufacturer or carrier for source.
3. The source code for the base OS is only a small part of the
development costs for a new phone. I think that testing is the real
killer, and the Japanese have never shown a talent for automating
software testing. Certainly this causes me an amazing amount of
misery as I build web sites used on phones.
I think that Linux on phones is actually pretty well suited to the
Japanese style of programming ("put a lot of grunts on it"), but I think
it's more likely to move costs around (from outside to inside) than save
money.
> It is not CURENTTLY possible to buy a slim handset that just does phone
> and email.
No. But then again, you can now buy slim handsets that do phone, e-mail,
web and have a camera. They're small enough that they can't get much
smaller and still be usable.
cjs
--
Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net> +81 90 7737 2974
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Received on Tue Nov 30 03:40:57 2004