Mobile Linux Groundswell

The rumble you hear in the ground is embedded Linux moving into the vast mobile space -- filling it not just with more closed devices built on open platforms, but with truly open devices that can connect anybody with anybody or anything, any way they like. And to write and use whatever programs they like, without having to limit usage to the insides of carriers' and equipment makers' walled gardens.

That's where several harbingers are pointed.

First there's Nokia's Linux-based N series tablets, now in their third generation with the N810. What matters isn't just that the N line keeps improving (and the Maemo development community right along with it), but that Nokia will sell its billionth phone sometime soon -- yet still needs to cripple most of those devices to fit the customer-containing purposes of its carrier partners' walled gardens. The goal here is to make the Net mobile, and it won't happen until Linux-modeled development methods and values prevail.

Next there's Linux mobile phone work. In November Google announced both the Linux-based Android mobile phone platform and the Open Handset Alliance, both add momentum to established open Linux handset development efforts by Montavista, OpenMoko, Trolltech and others. (Of course there are also plenty of closed handsets with Linux inside, but those play a lesser role in this movement.)

Next there's the XO Linux laptop from One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), which has finally begun shipping. The inventive little device is coming in at higher than the originally projected $100 price, but still has plenty of promise and breaks new technical and cultural ground.

Then there are efforts such as the Xandros-based Asus Eee PC (3EPC) 701 "ultra-mobile" laptop, and development platforms from Intel and Via for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and Ultra-Mobile Devices (UMDs), respectively, all of which pave the path toward wonton mobile Linux device development.

Together these suggest that Linux will win in the palm and the ear before it wins in the lap. But those wins will be bigger anyway, since hand-held mobile devices outnumber desktops and laptops by a wide margin. (See LJ Index for some of the latest numbers.)