I’m digesting this news right now, double checking for a late April Fool’s joke and will update as I get more information.
Update: This is no April Fools joke.
Intel’s Moblin has been handed over to the Linux Foundation.
Moblin has traditionally focused on Atom CPU’s for MID, smartphone and netbooks but this move will allow the Linux Foundation to open up the stack to other CPU and component vendors. In my eyes, its a move to position the OS away from Intel and right alongside Android and LiMo. As a brand, Moblin could become extremely important.
I do wonder how this affects the OS distributions that agreed to take it on for netbooks though. Here’s the Linux Foundation members list
Linux Foundation news
Update: Quote from ARSTechnica’s Ryan Paul:
I was initially puzzled by the vendor-neutral aspect of this transition for Moblin, because true vendor-neutrality seems like a counter-intuitive aim for a mobile platform that is fundamentally tied to Intel’s hardware. Zemlin explained that the Linux Foundation’s stewardship of the project will empower third-party contributors to expand the platform beyond its Intel-specific roots. He assures me that Intel sees value in making Moblin open to everyone—including companies that are leveraging Linux on competing processors, such as those based on the ARM architecture.
April 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
New article: Moblin handed over to Linux Foundation. http://cli.gs/LnBth5
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:43 am
..nah..checked v2 on my 901 eee and it gave me one single thought: i LOVE my jaunty!! period. jaunty is – see UNR or MID edition of ubuntu – are way ahead and moblin just won’t make any sense. i don’t see why canonical in the linux foundation would give moblin a priority if they have a better OWN product.
Chippy Reply:
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Moblin is currently the only route onto X86-based smartphones. No-one knows if that will eventually play out but right now, it would be good to have a finger in that pie. Canonical also stands to gain some contracts ‘finishing’ Moblin to carrier specifications. (UI, Apps, branding etc.)
Tony Reply:
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
yeah, as i understood, it’s the only one that has been cleared for x86 cellular telephony drivers
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:16 pm
i wonder why everybody finds it great the entire thing with moblin etc but then sitting around and waiting for xp drivers…if we see each 6 months an alpha or beta of moblin, that’s like lightyears…instead of testing it and improving it, people want xp drivers for their mids and umpcs…
if everybody hopes to have a working x86 based OS with lots of features, drop XP and start testing and reporting back to the developers.
September 27th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Wow…