Next Gen Mobile Technology - Open Source Cell Phones

Free to use Open source software is used by start-ups and small firms only, is an age old belief. Today many big companies are using and building products based on open source software. As per the survey conducted by Black Duck Software and North Bridge Venture Partners more and more companies are using open source software now because of stronger security, better quality, improved efficiency and lower cost as compared to proprietary software.

Open Source Software is being widely used for OS for computers but for most of their history mobile devices have been largely devoid of open source software or has not been much success like Google’s market dominating Android.

Let’s take a look at some of the open source software running on mobile phones

Openmoko

• Launched in 2006 - 2007, the Openmoko cell phone project brought the Openmoko Linux operating system to a handheld device. The user interface was designed for touch and was built with X.Org Server and the GTK+ toolkit.
• With 400MHz ARM chip and small 2.8-inch touch screen it was a sluggish device and by then iPhone was already impressing the mass and Android was on the horizon.

Greenphone

• The Greenphone was a unique device with unlocked GSM 2G, 312MHz Intel XScale processor, a QVGA non-touch screen, and 128MB of storage. Priced at $695, the greenphone kit was very costly.

Moblin, Maemo and MeeGo

• Intel launched Mobiln operation in 2005 for use in phones and mobile internet devices (MIDs). A MID was basically a touch screen computing device a little larger than a phone.
• Maemo version 1.1 was Linux-based mobile platform which was released in November of 2005, but it only worked on Nokia’s 770 internet tablet.
• February, 2010 Intel announced that it was merging Moblin with Nokia’s Maemo to create MeeGo and it was undertaken largely because of Intel’s annoyance that Windows 7 didn’t support ARM processors.
• February, 2011 Nokia went on to work with Windows Phone

Tizen

• Tizen started in 2007 as LiMo, which was based on the Linux kernel. In 2009, LiMo was launched on Samsung H1 but the interface was awkward and the system was slow and used to halt for no reasons.
• Later LiMo became Tizen, which is still Linux-based but also uses Enlightenment Foundation Libraries and WebKit.

webOS

• With webOS Palm has excellent features with multitasking and for application management in an intuitive way. But it was not fast enough to match the speed of Android and iOS

Sailfish OS

• Sailfish OS uses the Mer project for its core components and makes use of the Linux Kernel with some modifications.
• It is going to be used in smartphones manufactured by Jolla

Firefox OS

• In June 2012, Mozilla re-launched Gecko as Firefox OS. It includes APIs that support web-based applications hence making it faster and easier to develop apps.
• With Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, Firefox OS is aiming to provide to maximum performance on low-cost smartphone and reduce power consumption.

Android

• Android’s OS is based on the Linux kernel and it was designed majorly for touchscreen cell phones and tablets.
• Android was launched in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance but the first cell phone running Android, the HTC Dream, was released on October 22, 2008
• Approximately more than one billion Android devices have been activated at present and by far Android is the most used and successful open source software us

Benefits of Using Open Source Technology for Cell Phones

• Open Source Community works together for the betterment of the product hence there is a contribution from the entire world in the Research & Development. This is cost saving for cell phone manufacturers.
• If cell phone software becomes more open, it will foster a community of programmers who will create new applications and software add-ons.
• Consumers will have to pay less for the handset since there would be lesser or no commercial software (no licensing fees involved) in the phone.
• Customization of software helps developers to be more innovative and built a product providing user experience.
• Generally open source platforms have active community groups, forums, IRC channels etc to discuss and find solutions to the support issues. Even commercial support options are available these days at a very competitive rate as compared with proprietary systems.
• Lesser cost mobile phone handsets will help mobile phone manufacturers to reach the untapped audience who cannot afford to buy mobile phones.
• Additionally, open source community is working on the open source cell phone network (OpenBTS project) which will cost one-tenth as much as traditional networks to the consumers but the carriers can still make profit.
• Motorola’s Project Ara is about developing a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones. Imagine as a mobile phone user you can choose what your phone does, how it looks, decide which features to include etc as per your budget.

Concerns for using Open Source Technology for Cell Phones

• Open Source Codes are free to use, modify or even distribute the codes but there is no one officially responsible to monitor the progress or for improvement of the codes.
• Providing support is a concern for many cell phone manufacturers since developers with hands-on knowledge are not readily available in the market though the open source community is growing very fast.
• Developers build Open source product as per their wish in most of the cases rather in accordance with the needs of the end user.
• Intellectual Property Rights can be an issue since some countries are accepting software and algorithm patents. A particular method to solve a bug is patented or not is very difficult to know, and so the community can be considered guilty of intellectual property infringement.

Huge success of Android over the past few years has assured open source community that both the consumers and cell phone manufacturers appreciate good product especially if it is free, meets quality standards and is secured. If the cell phone manufacturers can leverage the strength of the open source technology it is going to prove to be a boon to the telecommunication and mobile industry.

About Author:

Nikhil Vaishnav is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at nikhil.v@spluspl.com