Several times I almost posted another tidbit here just about Linux-based handsets, but I never quite got around to it. In the meantime several things have happened; allow me to aggregate them, and I'll try and tie them together.
Apparently Android's kernel is now far more compatible with the mainline Linux kernel (or more accurately I suppose, the mainline Linux kernel is now more compatible with the Android one). Whether this means that the Android devs will bother merging their changes upstream now that the compatibility problem is fixed remains to be seen; it's telling that these patches came from a University professor involved with Novell rather than any Google engineers. Add that to Google's recent decision to withhold the source code for 3.0 for an unspecified period, despite the fact that devices running Honeycomb are in fact already shipping, and Ars Technica's analysis seems sadly accurate.
I wrote the prior paragraph late last month; since then it has somehow gotten more accurate, with Andy Rubin's response and once again a fairly scathing (and as always, with an excellent pic) deconstruction over at Ars Technica.
Meanwhile, I'm increasingly worried that the final Nokia Linux device might just be a tablet, (and I have some semi-private confirmation of that as well, or at least that the final device won't be a phone), which I wouldn't be as worried about if I didn't also notice that the N900 is entirely out of stock on Amazon.ca; at least it's still in on Amazon.com, and for a cheap $350 to boot. Eventually, you see, something gonna happen to my N900. It isn't invincible, and I carry it everywhere, so the math is pretty clear.
Meanwhile GrokLaw (in its final days) has a trenchant analysis of Nokia's recent announcement that, little over a year after open-sourcing Symbian, they're closing the source back up. Personally I suspect this is gearing up for adding some deep hooks into the OS to tie together Symbian and Windows Phone 7 in preparation for the transition; considering the wholesale revolt and disgust with the Microsoft deal from within the rank and file of Nokia, I can't see the WinPho7 devices coming out any time soon; so they do have plenty of time to prepare.
Of course, doubtless much of this comes from the number of managers from Microsoft running things at Nokia (for example, one of the managers of Symbian has long been ex-Microsoft, as now too is the head of Nokia USA, so it's more than even just having Elop at the top); of all the major electronics companies in the world they seem to have the greatest distrust and hostility towards anything open source. It wasn't untrue, the original reports that Microsoft bought Nokia for "Zero Billion Dollars" . . . well, other than that despite what some major websites reported they will in fact be paying off Nokia.
So is it looking bleak for open source in the brave new mobile world? Certainly it's not as rosy as Google would claim, or it seemed back when Nokia was backing MeeGo, but there's at least one final thing to note and I think it puts things in perspective. ASUS, who've long seemed like they want to get away from Microsoft but can't quite break up with them, is soon releasing their "Eee Pad Transformer", a tablet with a companion keyboard (with trackpad) dock, and which (in a move making it feel that much more like a true successor to the original EeePC) despite being Tegra2-based is reported to undercut all the other big tablets on price. This is notable in that, in full compliance with the GPL, they've already released the kernel source code for it, and thus it has already been rooted. So, perhaps it's getting harder again to buy a device that's entirely open out of the box; but before that box can even arrive, the groundwork for unlocking the device may already be in place. Now add that to the start of this article, where the mainline Linux kernel can now understand and use Android drivers, and I think we may be entering a phase with tablets and phones similar to how it was years ago with laptops; your average users may find it too much hassle, but for those of us who love to tinker and prefer our systems to be our own the possibilities are there.
Low-hanging fruit, even if from time to time we need a stepladder.
