First there was the Qtopia Greenphone from Trolltech ("a Linux mobile development device open for unlimited software innovation"). Then there was OpenMoko ("the world's first integrated open source mobile communications platform").
Now there's JavaFX Mobile ("a complete mobile operating and application environment built around Java and Linux open source technologies"). Not coincidentally, the phone Sun used to demonstrate JavaFX Mobile at JavaOne in May was the OpenMoko design (known as Neo1973) that we covered in the February issue of Linux Journal.
Sun and Java have been around the cell phone business for a long time. And the platform has come a long way since the time I joked to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz that Java to me was "the logo I had to stare at for sixteen seconds after I hit the wrong button on my cell phone".
But this is a huge new move, for five reasons. First, Java is being GPL'd (which was the cover story of our June issue). Second, Sun wants to fill the world with mobile phones that are open to development by players other than the phone builders and their carrier partners. Third, Sun actually has clout with phone makers. Fourth, they're not stopping at phones, but looking to put this in all kinds of embedded devices. Fifth, but hardly last, Schwartz & Co. have a bone to pick with Steve Jobs, who has dissed Java while getting huge PR for Apple's new (and closed) iPhone.
There are lots of dots to connect here.
There's SavaJe, the source of the code base for Java Mobile FX, recently acquired by Sun There are connections between Savaje and longtime Linux hardware developer Tadpole Technology.
There's Ed Zander, the Motorola CEO who used to be Sun's President & CEO, and who can't be happy to have seen Motorola's phone "partnership" with Apple go south. Would Motorola be willing to go zig in the open direction while Apple zags in the closed? Good chance.
There's Eric Schmidt, the former Java development chief at Sun who is now CEO of Google. He's on Apple's board, but still. It's a connection.
Then there's what Jonathan Schwartz says on his blog: that he wants the world to have an open platform that allows "any consumer electronics manufacturer to accelerate the delivery of Java/Linux based devices, from phones to set tops and dashboards and everything else imaginable. Without fear of format lock-in or disintermediation from a competitor". All from "a company with no agenda to disintermediate content owners, and every interest in propelling the open source community (every portion of the content Sun contributes to the JavaFX product and community will be via the GPL license, at the core of Java and GNU/Linux)".
He also wants this to make phones cheap as well as open, to "play a central role in bringing the Internet to the planet" and to "be the software to build the devices to bridge the digital divide". Like the One Laptop Per Child, only half the price or less.
Encouraging stuff. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
- Doc Searls