From jdub at gnome.org Thu Apr 19 12:01:35 2007 From: jdub at gnome.org (Jeff Waugh) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:01:35 +1000 (EST) Subject: The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initative Message-ID: <20070419160135.GA26489@localhost.localdomain> The following press release and quote sheet, as well as a selection of supporting press releases from GMAE members, are available on the web: http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/ - Jeff THE GNOME FOUNDATION AND INDUSTRY LEADERS JOIN TO CREATE GNOME MOBILE & EMBEDDED INITIATIVE Developers and Corporations Unite to Advance GNOME Technology as Leading User Experience Platform for Mobile and Embedded Devices. Embedded Linux Conference, Santa Clara, USA -- April 19, 2007 -- The GNOME Foundation announced today the creation of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative (GMAE), and a software platform for user experience development across a wide range of device profiles. "GNOME continues to drive the cutting edge of Open Source and Free Software innovation. With the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative, GNOME expands the reach of Software Freedom to new devices, new markets, and new audiences", said Jeff Waugh, founder of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative and a director of the GNOME Foundation board. "Developers will not only have the means to create great mobile and embedded software, but the freedom to envision and create fundamentally new kinds of devices, for entirely new markets." Mobile, embedded and converged devices comprise one of the most rapidly growing segments of the technology landscape, accounting for sales of billions of units per year. Analysts estimate that by 2010, one out of two smartphones will be based on Free and Open source software, and growth in this space is already faster than that of proprietary devices (Canalys, 2006). The mobile and embedded device space represents an unprecedented opportunity for third-party developers. Mission ======= The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will advance the use, development and commercialization of GNOME components as a mobile and embedded user experience platform. It brings together industry leaders, expert consultants, key developers and the community and industry organizations they represent. The initiative aims to: * Increase community and commercial visibility of GMAE technology and participating organizations. * Coordinate investment in the GTK+ and GNOME platform, documentation and developer tools. * Increase development focus on the "mobile experience", particularly the integration of GNOME desktop and GMAE technology. * Facilitate healthy development collaboration between participating organizations, the GNOME community and related projects; and between GNOME platform, desktop and GMAE developers. * Pursue standardization opportunities for the platform, and potentially at the user experience level. * Ensure that Software Freedom is a reality beyond the desktop, and available in the hands of users around the world. Participants ============ "This initiative augments a thriving commercial and community ecosystem around GNOME for mobile and embedded applications", noted Bill Weinberg, Principal Analyst at LinuxPundit. "Building on freely-licensed GTK+, GStreamer, and other GNOME software, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative provides a level playing field for companies and developers, for products and projects, offering a platform for innovation and collaboration." Founding organizations announcing their participation today include GNOME Foundation supporters ACCESS, Canonical, Debian, Igalia, Imendio, Intel, Nokia, OLPC, OpenedHand and Red Hat, and GMAE contributors CodeThink, Collabora, FIC, Fluendo, Kernel Concepts, Movial, Nomovok, Openismus, Vernier, Waugh Partners and Wolfson Microelectronics. Bridging industry and community, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative involves Open Source projects such as Avahi, BlueZ, Cairo, GNOME, GPE, GStreamer, GTK+, Hildon, Maemo, Matchbox, OpenMoko, Telepathy and Tinymail; and industry organisations CELF, the Linux Foundation and LiPS. A number of additional participants will announce their involvement at a later date, due to product schedules and other disclosure issues. Platform ======== The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform is a subset of the proven, widely used GNOME Platform. In addition to the core user experience toolkit (GTK+), the platform includes crucial functionality such as multimedia support (GStreamer), instant messaging and presence (Telepathy), Bluetooth (BlueZ), contacts and calendaring (E-D-S), and network service discovery (Avahi). APIs are available for developers using C, C++ or Python. Following GNOME's highly successful licensing strategy, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform is distributed under the terms of the LGPL, which allows for royalty-free use in proprietary software products, but encourages contribution of platform code changes back to the community. This, combined with a thriving open development process supported by industry and community, makes the GMAE Platform uniquely suited to the needs of mobile and embedded developers. The platform definition announced today represents components that are currently shipping in production devices, but GMAE participants are planning to grow the platform aggressively in the next twelve months, to enable new technologies and functionality. Components already under consideration include the Java Mobile & Embedded platform (Java ME), a geolocation service (GeoClue), a hardware information system (HAL), an audio management service (PulseAudio), and a mobile email framework (Tinymail). The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform is already a key technology component in a wide range of products and projects, including those from GMAE participants such as the Intel Mobile Internet Device (MID), the Nokia N770 and N800 web tablet, the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop, the OpenMoko Neo1973 mobile phone, the Vernier LabQuest; the Sugar, Hildon and GPE user interfaces; and the ACCESS Linux Platform. As an open development community, GMAE participants are keen to hear from other organisations and developers using these technologies. Please introduce yourself to the community on our development mailing list, or contact Jeff Waugh for more information (details below). Industry & Community Support ============================ The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative enjoys strong support from industry and community leaders: * "As Linux becomes increasingly important in the portable Internet device and mobile segments, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded initiative is imperative for the community to collaborate on building a strong experience for mobile device users. We look forward to contributing and participating in the initiative to advance Embedded Linux." -- Imad Sousou, Director of Open Source Technology Center, Intel * "GNOME is an active and truly open developer community creating innovative software. This is why Nokia joined the community and chose GNOME software as a foundation for the Maemo platform and our Internet Tablets. We are excited about the growing use of GNOME software in consumer devices. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will now take this further by bringing together community and industry to promote and coordinate the continued development of the GMAE platform." -- Ari Jaaksi, Director of Open Source Software Oprations, Nokia * "With OpenedHand's core business over the past five years being focused on the development and improvement of GNOME based embedded devices, we are extremely pleased to be part of the formation of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. These technologies give device manufacturers unrivaled freedom and flexibility in device creation. GMAE further paves the way for collaboration between companies and the community to further innovations and benefit all involved." -- Matthew Allum, CEO, OpenedHand Ltd. * "As one of the oldest corporate contributors to the GNOME Project, Red Hat is excited to see GNOME move into new spaces beyond the desktop. We've seen the flexibility of the platform with the new UI we've created for the One Laptop per Child project, which is based on the blending of technologies that both GNOME and Red Hat bring to the table. GNOME will be an incredibly important technology in our drive to build new markets in the client space." -- Brian Stevens, CTO at Red Hat * "With its long term focus on simplified, usable human interfaces, the entrance of the GNOME project onto the mobile and embedded scene is a welcome one. Add in the widespread corporate and community support that the parent project enjoys, and the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a project to follow." -- Stephen O'Grady, Principal Analyst, RedMonk For many more perspectives from industry and community, please see the quote sheet accompanying this release. More Information ================ More information about the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative can be found at www.gnome.org/mobile. About the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative ============================================ The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative advances the use, development and commercialization of GNOME components as a mobile and embedded user experience platform. It brings together industry leaders, expert consultants, key developers and the community and industry organizations they represent. As an open development community, participants support the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform, a subset of GNOME's proven, widely used desktop platform, focusing on software components shipping in production mobile and embedded products. More information about GMAE can be found at www.gnome.org/mobile. About the GNOME Foundation ========================== Comprised of hundreds of volunteer developers and industry-leading companies, the GNOME Foundation is an organization committed to supporting the advancement of GNOME. The Foundation is a member directed, non-profit organization that provides financial, organizational and legal support to the GNOME project and helps determine its vision and roadmap. More information on the GNOME Foundation can be found at foundation.gnome.org. Media Enquiries =============== GNOME Foundation Press Officer Jeff Waugh (Sydney, Australia. Currently in Santa Clara, CA.) Email: gnome-press-contact at gnome.org Mobile: +61 423 989 818 Quote Sheet =========== * "As an organization relying on GNOME technologies in our ACCESS Linux Platform product, and with a strong commitment to supporting and participating in the open source software development community, ACCESS is very pleased to be a founding member of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. GMAE is uniquely community-driven, as well as uniquely about writing working open source code for the most-used pieces of technology in people's lives. It doesn't get much more exciting than that!" -- David "Lefty" Schlesinger, Director of Open Source Technologies, ACCESS Co., Ltd. * "Linux based mobile and embedded devices are the future. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a great opportunity for the community to shape the mobile user experience. The BlueZ Project is proud to be part of GMAE and provide an unified access to the Bluetooth technology across desktop and embedded systems." -- Marcel Holtmann, BlueZ Project * "Cairo provides advanced 2D graphics rendering to the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform, making it easy to meet the visual demands of today's increasingly rich mobile applications. The Cairo community is grateful for contributions from GMAE participants which continually improve Cairo's performance on mobile devices." -- Carl Worth, maintainer of the Cairo graphics library * "Canonical supports GNOME as a forum for collaboration around an open platform for mobile devices, from internet tablets to smartphones. We believe that the GNOME commitment to usability, which we share in the Ubuntu community, is an essential ingredient for the creation of mobile applications for mass market consumer devices." -- Jane Silber, COO, Canonical * "This announcement by the GNOME Foundation is a welcome addition to the Open Source community landscape. The CE Linux Forum is always happy to see effective community efforts organized and working. We look forward to working with this group to enhance the capability to use Linux in mobile phones." -- Tim Bird, Chair of the Architecture Group of the CE Linux Forum * "The choice of user-space on graphical embedded systems has long been a difficult and error-prone decision. With the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative, the power of the GNOME desktop becomes available to the embedded world, of course as truly Open Source Software. The founding members of GMAE include open source project members, device manufacturers already using GNOME technologies and a number of consultancies who can provide expert guidance and services. Codethink has worked hard on bringing core GNOME and Freedesktop technologies such as HAL and D-Bus into the embedded sphere and is very excited to be part of this initiative." -- Rob Taylor, Director, Codethink Ltd. * "The embedded and mobile markets are adopting open source in general and GNOME in particular at an ever-increasing rate. By joining forces through the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative, knowledge and applications can be easily pooled to benefit the entire community. Real-time communications are an essential part of mobile devices and we're delighted to bring our expertise in this area to the initiative, and support our Telepathy communications framework as a key component of the platform." -- Philippe Kalaf, Director, Collabora Ltd. * "Debian has been distributing the GNOME desktop for almost ten years now, and releases more than 18,000 software packages for eleven architectures, including some embedded ones and more to come. With its commitment to Free Software and focus on the development of a truly universal operating system, the Debian project welcomes the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. We will help integrate the technologies developed into our system, which will benefit our users but also the dozens of Debian-based distributions, and especially embedded derivatives." -- Sam Hocevar, Debian Project Leader * "We built OpenMoko with the goal of creating a platform that has the potential to leapfrog the PC. For us, the work going on around the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initative is fundamental to realizing this dream. It was the natural choice for us to base our architecture on, and begin to explore the implications of truly open mobile devices." -- Sean Moss-Pultz, OpenMoko Product Manager, FIC * "Seeing rapid uptake of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative technology stack by embedded industry has been incredible. Fluendo is very happy to be a core part of this effort, in the form of being the primary force behind the GStreamer multimedia framework. We look forward to pushing the whole platform even further in collaboration with our GMAE partners and our customers." -- Pascal Pegaz, Co-founder Fluendo S.A. * "The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is exactly what we need to create a powerful and reliable base for all the projects that make use of GNOME components on embedded and mobile devices already. It will help to improve the communication between the upstream GNOME developers and embedded project members and is quite likely to become a great new institiution improving the quality of Open Source software. Both the GPE and the GPE Phone Edition projects are really happy to see GMAE become true!" -- Florian Boor, GPE lead developer * "As a GNOME development company, we are very pleased to participate in GMAE. We consider that this initiative will increase the synergies between the main actors working in the adoption of GNOME as technical platform for mobile devices. Making GNOME even more mobile-friendly, defining and evolving an innovative software platform for user experience development across a wide range of device profiles, will increase and diversify the use cases of the project technologies, benefiting both mobile and desktop users and developers". -- Juan Jos?? S??nchez Penas, co-founder of Igalia * "As a small company specializing in GTK+ and GNOME, Imendio is excited to be part of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. We hope to see this serve as an important bridge between the GNOME community and the embedded market as well as a marketplace for further cooperation between the involved parties. With our deep roots in GNOME, we are thrilled to see the project take this important step towards new platforms." -- Mikael Hallendal, CEO Imendio AB * "In recent years we've seen Linux spread from the server to the desktop. To a large extent the success on the desktop was due to the GNOME project. Whether Linux is suitable for the desktop is no longer the question: We are now looking at the next logical step, the mobile desktop. And today again GNOME is consolidating the various fruitful efforts in this one combined project, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. kernel concepts very much appreciates and supports this effort and is proud to be one of its initial members! As a company working in the mobile and embedded Linux field for more than seven years and mobile desktops for more than six years this initiative will help us to create even better solutions for our customers." -- Nils Faerber, CEO, kernel concepts * "The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a huge step in providing the mobile ecosystem with a community-supported, Open Source mobile stack of software. This open mobile stack is the perfect complement to an open Linux- based mobile platform and complements the work being done in the Linux Foundation Mobile Linux workgroup. The GMAE collection of open applications will give mobile handset and tablet users a rich and consistent 'mobile experience' with standardization opportunities for the platform as well as at the user experience level." -- John Cherry, Linux Foundation Mobile Linux Manager * "The Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS) recognizes the significant contributions that GNOME technologies provide for the desktop and increasingly for mobile devices. LiPS welcomes the efforts of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative to raise awareness of mobile requirements, and to address technological barriers to broader adoption of open source in mobile devices. LiPS anticipates productive collaboration with GMAE in standardization and in enhancing the mobile user experience." -- Haila Wang, president of LiPS Forum * "MontaVista Software recognizes the huge opportunity to design, define and deliver the key capabilities of future Linux based mobile phone products. We all understand the value of a highly usable, customizable and compelling mobile user experience. We anticipate working very closely with the GNOME team." -- Larry Slotnick, VP of Engineering, MontaVista Software, Inc. * "GNOME is an active and truly open developer community creating innovative software. This is why Nokia joined the community and chose GNOME software as a foundation for the Maemo platform and our Internet Tablets. We are excited about the growing use of GNOME software in consumer devices. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will now take this further by bringing together community and industry to promote and coordinate the continued development of the GMAE platform." -- Ari Jaaksi, Director of Open Source Software Oprations, Nokia * "With OpenedHand's core business over the past five years being focused on the development and improvement of GNOME based embedded devices, we are extremely pleased to be part of the formation of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. These technologies give device manufacturers unrivaled freedom and flexibility in device creation. GMAE further paves the way for collaboration between companies and the community to further innovations and benefit all involved." -- Matthew Allum, CEO, OpenedHand Ltd. * "We are thrilled to be a part of this next stage of the Embedded Linux market. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative offers major opportunities via increased consolidation of our development platform and by allowing coordination around a common schedule, with scope for differentiation where it counts. GMAE can do for embedded devices what GNOME has done for the desktop." -- Murray Cumming, Managing Director of Openismus GmbH * "With its long term focus on simplified, usable human interfaces, the entrance of the GNOME project onto the mobile and embedded scene is a welcome one. Add in the widespread corporate and community support that the parent project enjoys, and the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a project to follow." -- Stephen O'Grady, Principal Analyst, RedMonk * "As one of the oldest corporate contributors to the GNOME Project, Red Hat is excited to see GNOME move into new spaces beyond the desktop. We've seen the flexibility of the platform with the new UI we've created for the One Laptop per Child project, which is based on the blending of technologies that both GNOME and Red Hat bring to the table. GNOME will be an incredibly important technology in our drive to build new markets in the client space." -- Brian Stevens, CTO at Red Hat * "GNOME is a set of versatile components that are very suitable as building blocks for creating a software environment for mobile devices and phones. Being such a building block, Tinymail fits in that picture. Most of the Tinymail project members are part of the GNOME community, they believe the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will bring component teams and companies closer together." -- Philip Van Hoof, author of the tinymail framework * "As Linux plays a growing role in mobile connected multimedia experiences for consumers, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative comes at an important time. Wind River strongly supports this initiative. GMAE will assist the GNOME community to be efficient and help them deliver solutions to a much larger audience - the billions of embedded devices ranging from cell phones to web tablets to automotive infotainment systems. Wind River, the Leader in commercial embedded Linux, looks forward to working closely with this community." -- Glenn Seiler, Director of Linux Platforms, Wind River From jdub at perkypants.org Fri Apr 20 14:33:44 2007 From: jdub at perkypants.org (Jeff Waugh) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:33:44 -0700 Subject: Press coverage In-Reply-To: <65EC24E778D4E94C943B26AA6009778602FC87@ussunex01.svl.access-company.com> References: <20070418071449.GF26500@localhost> <87veftryi8.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <65EC24E778D4E94C943B26AA6009778602FC87@ussunex01.svl.access-company.com> Message-ID: <20070420183344.GC6133@localhost> Figured I should send these here, get things rolling! :-) > LinuxDevices.com: http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4844817737.html > Electronics Weekly: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2007/04/19/41215/GNOME+pushes+open+source+Linux+into+mobiles.htm > Linux.com: http://applications.linux.com/applications/07/04/19/145222.shtml?tid=26&tid=34 More: LWN: http://lwn.net/Articles/231123/ (subs only for now) http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/231123/891c56ae21b9097d/ (special link for those of you who don't subscribe to lwn - NAUGHTY) Infoworld USA: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/20/HNgnomemobile_1.html (also hit Computerworld, Networkworld and PC World USA, and Techworld UK.) Contains positive analyst quotes. And another: UMPC News: http://www.umpcportal.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=515 "Forget the technical details, what it really means is that nearly all the players in the mobile Linux 'arena' are now talking to each other and working together." - Jeff -- Open CeBIT 2007: Sydney, Australia http://www.opencebit.com.au/ "...and did you know that Twisties have real cheese in them?" - Dave "I didn't even think they had real twists in them!" - Andrew From jdub at perkypants.org Mon Apr 23 06:34:01 2007 From: jdub at perkypants.org (Jeff Waugh) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 03:34:01 -0700 Subject: Going home, updates, downtime Message-ID: <20070423103401.GA6357@localhost> Hey folks, I'm heading back on Tuesday, so just wanted to dump some thoughts/updates before I return home. I'm going to be out of the loop for a bit, and not just while I'm stuck on the plane... * Informa -- who ran OSiM last year, which received very positive reports from everyone I've spoken to -- have invited me to be part of their event advisory board (along with a bunch of other awesome folks), which is pretty cool. I don't really see this as a conflict of interest, as it supports our goals, but if anyone has concerns about it let me know. * Got some analyst briefings lined up, including one of Ovum's wireless analysts, which should be good. We've definitely stamped ourselves on the radar this week, with the launch and Intel's MID announcements! * Speaking of Intel, my radar is picking up more about the Ubuntu angle, so hopefully we'll hear from them soon. If anyone has contacts at Red Flag, please get in touch and invite them along. Historically we've been pretty bad at reaching out to our developer friends in Asia, so that's another where GMAE could lead the way. * I'm going to be flat out next week, as Pia and I are organising the Open CeBIT conference and exhibition in Sydney. Should be a blast, but GMAE is not going to get much of my headspace until the weekend after. Even then, I'll probably be recovering from belated jetlag. ;-) * In the meantime, I'm going to pull together the input I've received about desires for release plans (particularly the 'mobile' suite for 2.20), and community governance (as we're subtly different from the main project, but don't really want to be in the general case) and put it in a proposal for the group. I'll prioritise the release-team stuff, 'cos they'll need to know about the 'mobile' suite pretty soon. Please throw feedback my way so I can digest and adapt it. Sorry, late rambling. ;-) Thanks, - Jeff -- Open CeBIT 2007: Sydney, Australia http://www.opencebit.com.au/ "Whether you want to set fire to old institutions or to build whole new ones, nothing beats a good blog." - Doc Searls From jdub@perkypants.org Thu Apr 19 12:01:52 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org Delivered-To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by menubar.gnome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA0AA3CD57; Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:01:52 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at gnome.org X-Spam-Score: 1.136 X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.136 tagged_above=-999 required=2 tests=[BAYES_50=0.001, FORGED_RCVD_HELO=0.135, SARE_LWHUGE=1] X-Amavis-OS-Fingerprint: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 2) (up: 21 hrs), (distance 12, link: ethernet/modem), [70.85.31.216] Received: from menubar.gnome.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (menubar.gnome.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 817C31180FD; Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:01:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from node.waugh.id.au (node.waugh.id.au [70.85.31.216]) by menubar.gnome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 72EB37C4; Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:01:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost.localdomain (64-172-16-224.ded.pacbell.net [64.172.16.224]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by node.waugh.id.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1540118113; Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:01:43 +1000 (EST) Received: by localhost.localdomain (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 2F15D57D65; Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:01:35 +1000 (EST) From: Jeff Waugh To: GNOME Mobile , Subject: The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initative Message-Id: <20070419160135.GA26489@localhost.localdomain> Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:01:35 +1000 (EST) X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:03:35 -0400 X-BeenThere: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.8 Precedence: list List-Id: GNOME Mobile Platform development and discussion List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:01:52 -0000 The following press release and quote sheet, as well as a selection of supporting press releases from GMAE members, are available on the web: http://www.gnome.org/press/releases/ - Jeff THE GNOME FOUNDATION AND INDUSTRY LEADERS JOIN TO CREATE GNOME MOBILE & EMBEDDED INITIATIVE Developers and Corporations Unite to Advance GNOME Technology as Leading User Experience Platform for Mobile and Embedded Devices. Embedded Linux Conference, Santa Clara, USA -- April 19, 2007 -- The GNOME Foundation announced today the creation of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative (GMAE), and a software platform for user experience development across a wide range of device profiles. "GNOME continues to drive the cutting edge of Open Source and Free Software innovation. With the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative, GNOME expands the reach of Software Freedom to new devices, new markets, and new audiences", said Jeff Waugh, founder of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative and a director of the GNOME Foundation board. "Developers will not only have the means to create great mobile and embedded software, but the freedom to envision and create fundamentally new kinds of devices, for entirely new markets." Mobile, embedded and converged devices comprise one of the most rapidly growing segments of the technology landscape, accounting for sales of billions of units per year. Analysts estimate that by 2010, one out of two smartphones will be based on Free and Open source software, and growth in this space is already faster than that of proprietary devices (Canalys, 2006). The mobile and embedded device space represents an unprecedented opportunity for third-party developers. Mission ======= The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will advance the use, development and commercialization of GNOME components as a mobile and embedded user experience platform. It brings together industry leaders, expert consultants, key developers and the community and industry organizations they represent. The initiative aims to: * Increase community and commercial visibility of GMAE technology and participating organizations. * Coordinate investment in the GTK+ and GNOME platform, documentation and developer tools. * Increase development focus on the "mobile experience", particularly the integration of GNOME desktop and GMAE technology. * Facilitate healthy development collaboration between participating organizations, the GNOME community and related projects; and between GNOME platform, desktop and GMAE developers. * Pursue standardization opportunities for the platform, and potentially at the user experience level. * Ensure that Software Freedom is a reality beyond the desktop, and available in the hands of users around the world. Participants ============ "This initiative augments a thriving commercial and community ecosystem around GNOME for mobile and embedded applications", noted Bill Weinberg, Principal Analyst at LinuxPundit. "Building on freely-licensed GTK+, GStreamer, and other GNOME software, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative provides a level playing field for companies and developers, for products and projects, offering a platform for innovation and collaboration." Founding organizations announcing their participation today include GNOME Foundation supporters ACCESS, Canonical, Debian, Igalia, Imendio, Intel, Nokia, OLPC, OpenedHand and Red Hat, and GMAE contributors CodeThink, Collabora, FIC, Fluendo, Kernel Concepts, Movial, Nomovok, Openismus, Vernier, Waugh Partners and Wolfson Microelectronics. Bridging industry and community, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative involves Open Source projects such as Avahi, BlueZ, Cairo, GNOME, GPE, GStreamer, GTK+, Hildon, Maemo, Matchbox, OpenMoko, Telepathy and Tinymail; and industry organisations CELF, the Linux Foundation and LiPS. A number of additional participants will announce their involvement at a later date, due to product schedules and other disclosure issues. Platform ======== The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform is a subset of the proven, widely used GNOME Platform. In addition to the core user experience toolkit (GTK+), the platform includes crucial functionality such as multimedia support (GStreamer), instant messaging and presence (Telepathy), Bluetooth (BlueZ), contacts and calendaring (E-D-S), and network service discovery (Avahi). APIs are available for developers using C, C++ or Python. Following GNOME's highly successful licensing strategy, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform is distributed under the terms of the LGPL, which allows for royalty-free use in proprietary software products, but encourages contribution of platform code changes back to the community. This, combined with a thriving open development process supported by industry and community, makes the GMAE Platform uniquely suited to the needs of mobile and embedded developers. The platform definition announced today represents components that are currently shipping in production devices, but GMAE participants are planning to grow the platform aggressively in the next twelve months, to enable new technologies and functionality. Components already under consideration include the Java Mobile & Embedded platform (Java ME), a geolocation service (GeoClue), a hardware information system (HAL), an audio management service (PulseAudio), and a mobile email framework (Tinymail). The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform is already a key technology component in a wide range of products and projects, including those from GMAE participants such as the Intel Mobile Internet Device (MID), the Nokia N770 and N800 web tablet, the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop, the OpenMoko Neo1973 mobile phone, the Vernier LabQuest; the Sugar, Hildon and GPE user interfaces; and the ACCESS Linux Platform. As an open development community, GMAE participants are keen to hear from other organisations and developers using these technologies. Please introduce yourself to the community on our development mailing list, or contact Jeff Waugh for more information (details below). Industry & Community Support ============================ The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative enjoys strong support from industry and community leaders: * "As Linux becomes increasingly important in the portable Internet device and mobile segments, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded initiative is imperative for the community to collaborate on building a strong experience for mobile device users. We look forward to contributing and participating in the initiative to advance Embedded Linux." -- Imad Sousou, Director of Open Source Technology Center, Intel * "GNOME is an active and truly open developer community creating innovative software. This is why Nokia joined the community and chose GNOME software as a foundation for the Maemo platform and our Internet Tablets. We are excited about the growing use of GNOME software in consumer devices. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will now take this further by bringing together community and industry to promote and coordinate the continued development of the GMAE platform." -- Ari Jaaksi, Director of Open Source Software Oprations, Nokia * "With OpenedHand's core business over the past five years being focused on the development and improvement of GNOME based embedded devices, we are extremely pleased to be part of the formation of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. These technologies give device manufacturers unrivaled freedom and flexibility in device creation. GMAE further paves the way for collaboration between companies and the community to further innovations and benefit all involved." -- Matthew Allum, CEO, OpenedHand Ltd. * "As one of the oldest corporate contributors to the GNOME Project, Red Hat is excited to see GNOME move into new spaces beyond the desktop. We've seen the flexibility of the platform with the new UI we've created for the One Laptop per Child project, which is based on the blending of technologies that both GNOME and Red Hat bring to the table. GNOME will be an incredibly important technology in our drive to build new markets in the client space." -- Brian Stevens, CTO at Red Hat * "With its long term focus on simplified, usable human interfaces, the entrance of the GNOME project onto the mobile and embedded scene is a welcome one. Add in the widespread corporate and community support that the parent project enjoys, and the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a project to follow." -- Stephen O'Grady, Principal Analyst, RedMonk For many more perspectives from industry and community, please see the quote sheet accompanying this release. More Information ================ More information about the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative can be found at www.gnome.org/mobile. About the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative ============================================ The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative advances the use, development and commercialization of GNOME components as a mobile and embedded user experience platform. It brings together industry leaders, expert consultants, key developers and the community and industry organizations they represent. As an open development community, participants support the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform, a subset of GNOME's proven, widely used desktop platform, focusing on software components shipping in production mobile and embedded products. More information about GMAE can be found at www.gnome.org/mobile. About the GNOME Foundation ========================== Comprised of hundreds of volunteer developers and industry-leading companies, the GNOME Foundation is an organization committed to supporting the advancement of GNOME. The Foundation is a member directed, non-profit organization that provides financial, organizational and legal support to the GNOME project and helps determine its vision and roadmap. More information on the GNOME Foundation can be found at foundation.gnome.org. Media Enquiries =============== GNOME Foundation Press Officer Jeff Waugh (Sydney, Australia. Currently in Santa Clara, CA.) Email: gnome-press-contact@gnome.org Mobile: +61 423 989 818 Quote Sheet =========== * "As an organization relying on GNOME technologies in our ACCESS Linux Platform product, and with a strong commitment to supporting and participating in the open source software development community, ACCESS is very pleased to be a founding member of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. GMAE is uniquely community-driven, as well as uniquely about writing working open source code for the most-used pieces of technology in people's lives. It doesn't get much more exciting than that!" -- David "Lefty" Schlesinger, Director of Open Source Technologies, ACCESS Co., Ltd. * "Linux based mobile and embedded devices are the future. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a great opportunity for the community to shape the mobile user experience. The BlueZ Project is proud to be part of GMAE and provide an unified access to the Bluetooth technology across desktop and embedded systems." -- Marcel Holtmann, BlueZ Project * "Cairo provides advanced 2D graphics rendering to the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Platform, making it easy to meet the visual demands of today's increasingly rich mobile applications. The Cairo community is grateful for contributions from GMAE participants which continually improve Cairo's performance on mobile devices." -- Carl Worth, maintainer of the Cairo graphics library * "Canonical supports GNOME as a forum for collaboration around an open platform for mobile devices, from internet tablets to smartphones. We believe that the GNOME commitment to usability, which we share in the Ubuntu community, is an essential ingredient for the creation of mobile applications for mass market consumer devices." -- Jane Silber, COO, Canonical * "This announcement by the GNOME Foundation is a welcome addition to the Open Source community landscape. The CE Linux Forum is always happy to see effective community efforts organized and working. We look forward to working with this group to enhance the capability to use Linux in mobile phones." -- Tim Bird, Chair of the Architecture Group of the CE Linux Forum * "The choice of user-space on graphical embedded systems has long been a difficult and error-prone decision. With the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative, the power of the GNOME desktop becomes available to the embedded world, of course as truly Open Source Software. The founding members of GMAE include open source project members, device manufacturers already using GNOME technologies and a number of consultancies who can provide expert guidance and services. Codethink has worked hard on bringing core GNOME and Freedesktop technologies such as HAL and D-Bus into the embedded sphere and is very excited to be part of this initiative." -- Rob Taylor, Director, Codethink Ltd. * "The embedded and mobile markets are adopting open source in general and GNOME in particular at an ever-increasing rate. By joining forces through the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative, knowledge and applications can be easily pooled to benefit the entire community. Real-time communications are an essential part of mobile devices and we're delighted to bring our expertise in this area to the initiative, and support our Telepathy communications framework as a key component of the platform." -- Philippe Kalaf, Director, Collabora Ltd. * "Debian has been distributing the GNOME desktop for almost ten years now, and releases more than 18,000 software packages for eleven architectures, including some embedded ones and more to come. With its commitment to Free Software and focus on the development of a truly universal operating system, the Debian project welcomes the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. We will help integrate the technologies developed into our system, which will benefit our users but also the dozens of Debian-based distributions, and especially embedded derivatives." -- Sam Hocevar, Debian Project Leader * "We built OpenMoko with the goal of creating a platform that has the potential to leapfrog the PC. For us, the work going on around the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initative is fundamental to realizing this dream. It was the natural choice for us to base our architecture on, and begin to explore the implications of truly open mobile devices." -- Sean Moss-Pultz, OpenMoko Product Manager, FIC * "Seeing rapid uptake of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative technology stack by embedded industry has been incredible. Fluendo is very happy to be a core part of this effort, in the form of being the primary force behind the GStreamer multimedia framework. We look forward to pushing the whole platform even further in collaboration with our GMAE partners and our customers." -- Pascal Pegaz, Co-founder Fluendo S.A. * "The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is exactly what we need to create a powerful and reliable base for all the projects that make use of GNOME components on embedded and mobile devices already. It will help to improve the communication between the upstream GNOME developers and embedded project members and is quite likely to become a great new institiution improving the quality of Open Source software. Both the GPE and the GPE Phone Edition projects are really happy to see GMAE become true!" -- Florian Boor, GPE lead developer * "As a GNOME development company, we are very pleased to participate in GMAE. We consider that this initiative will increase the synergies between the main actors working in the adoption of GNOME as technical platform for mobile devices. Making GNOME even more mobile-friendly, defining and evolving an innovative software platform for user experience development across a wide range of device profiles, will increase and diversify the use cases of the project technologies, benefiting both mobile and desktop users and developers". -- Juan José Sánchez Penas, co-founder of Igalia * "As a small company specializing in GTK+ and GNOME, Imendio is excited to be part of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. We hope to see this serve as an important bridge between the GNOME community and the embedded market as well as a marketplace for further cooperation between the involved parties. With our deep roots in GNOME, we are thrilled to see the project take this important step towards new platforms." -- Mikael Hallendal, CEO Imendio AB * "In recent years we've seen Linux spread from the server to the desktop. To a large extent the success on the desktop was due to the GNOME project. Whether Linux is suitable for the desktop is no longer the question: We are now looking at the next logical step, the mobile desktop. And today again GNOME is consolidating the various fruitful efforts in this one combined project, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. kernel concepts very much appreciates and supports this effort and is proud to be one of its initial members! As a company working in the mobile and embedded Linux field for more than seven years and mobile desktops for more than six years this initiative will help us to create even better solutions for our customers." -- Nils Faerber, CEO, kernel concepts * "The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a huge step in providing the mobile ecosystem with a community-supported, Open Source mobile stack of software. This open mobile stack is the perfect complement to an open Linux- based mobile platform and complements the work being done in the Linux Foundation Mobile Linux workgroup. The GMAE collection of open applications will give mobile handset and tablet users a rich and consistent 'mobile experience' with standardization opportunities for the platform as well as at the user experience level." -- John Cherry, Linux Foundation Mobile Linux Manager * "The Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS) recognizes the significant contributions that GNOME technologies provide for the desktop and increasingly for mobile devices. LiPS welcomes the efforts of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative to raise awareness of mobile requirements, and to address technological barriers to broader adoption of open source in mobile devices. LiPS anticipates productive collaboration with GMAE in standardization and in enhancing the mobile user experience." -- Haila Wang, president of LiPS Forum * "MontaVista Software recognizes the huge opportunity to design, define and deliver the key capabilities of future Linux based mobile phone products. We all understand the value of a highly usable, customizable and compelling mobile user experience. We anticipate working very closely with the GNOME team." -- Larry Slotnick, VP of Engineering, MontaVista Software, Inc. * "GNOME is an active and truly open developer community creating innovative software. This is why Nokia joined the community and chose GNOME software as a foundation for the Maemo platform and our Internet Tablets. We are excited about the growing use of GNOME software in consumer devices. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will now take this further by bringing together community and industry to promote and coordinate the continued development of the GMAE platform." -- Ari Jaaksi, Director of Open Source Software Oprations, Nokia * "With OpenedHand's core business over the past five years being focused on the development and improvement of GNOME based embedded devices, we are extremely pleased to be part of the formation of the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative. These technologies give device manufacturers unrivaled freedom and flexibility in device creation. GMAE further paves the way for collaboration between companies and the community to further innovations and benefit all involved." -- Matthew Allum, CEO, OpenedHand Ltd. * "We are thrilled to be a part of this next stage of the Embedded Linux market. The GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative offers major opportunities via increased consolidation of our development platform and by allowing coordination around a common schedule, with scope for differentiation where it counts. GMAE can do for embedded devices what GNOME has done for the desktop." -- Murray Cumming, Managing Director of Openismus GmbH * "With its long term focus on simplified, usable human interfaces, the entrance of the GNOME project onto the mobile and embedded scene is a welcome one. Add in the widespread corporate and community support that the parent project enjoys, and the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative is a project to follow." -- Stephen O'Grady, Principal Analyst, RedMonk * "As one of the oldest corporate contributors to the GNOME Project, Red Hat is excited to see GNOME move into new spaces beyond the desktop. We've seen the flexibility of the platform with the new UI we've created for the One Laptop per Child project, which is based on the blending of technologies that both GNOME and Red Hat bring to the table. GNOME will be an incredibly important technology in our drive to build new markets in the client space." -- Brian Stevens, CTO at Red Hat * "GNOME is a set of versatile components that are very suitable as building blocks for creating a software environment for mobile devices and phones. Being such a building block, Tinymail fits in that picture. Most of the Tinymail project members are part of the GNOME community, they believe the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative will bring component teams and companies closer together." -- Philip Van Hoof, author of the tinymail framework * "As Linux plays a growing role in mobile connected multimedia experiences for consumers, the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative comes at an important time. Wind River strongly supports this initiative. GMAE will assist the GNOME community to be efficient and help them deliver solutions to a much larger audience - the billions of embedded devices ranging from cell phones to web tablets to automotive infotainment systems. Wind River, the Leader in commercial embedded Linux, looks forward to working closely with this community." -- Glenn Seiler, Director of Linux Platforms, Wind River From jdub@perkypants.org Sat Apr 21 04:35:55 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org Delivered-To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by menubar.gnome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 078AD3CCDB for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:33:48 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at gnome.org X-Amavis-OS-Fingerprint: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 2) (up: 48 hrs), (distance 12, link: ethernet/modem), [70.85.31.216] Received: from menubar.gnome.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (menubar.gnome.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 8284D1180BE for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:33:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from node.waugh.id.au (node.waugh.id.au [70.85.31.216]) by menubar.gnome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA5761180B3 for ; Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:33:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost.localdomain (unknown [12.44.170.10]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by node.waugh.id.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id 56BC61180E0 for ; Sat, 21 Apr 2007 04:33:45 +1000 (EST) Received: by localhost.localdomain (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 6C14C57DDD; Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:33:34 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:33:44 -0700 From: Jeff Waugh To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org Subject: Press coverage Message-ID: <20070420183344.GC6133@localhost> Mail-Followup-To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org References: <20070418071449.GF26500@localhost> <87veftryi8.wl%cworth@cworth.org> <65EC24E778D4E94C943B26AA6009778602FC87@ussunex01.svl.access-company.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <65EC24E778D4E94C943B26AA6009778602FC87@ussunex01.svl.access-company.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) X-BeenThere: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.8 Precedence: list List-Id: GNOME Mobile Platform development and discussion List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: mobile-devel-list-bounces@gnome.org Errors-To: mobile-devel-list-bounces@gnome.org Figured I should send these here, get things rolling! :-) > LinuxDevices.com: http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4844817737.html > Electronics Weekly: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2007/04/19/41215/GNOME+pushes+open+source+Linux+into+mobiles.htm > Linux.com: http://applications.linux.com/applications/07/04/19/145222.shtml?tid=26&tid=34 More: LWN: http://lwn.net/Articles/231123/ (subs only for now) http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/231123/891c56ae21b9097d/ (special link for those of you who don't subscribe to lwn - NAUGHTY) Infoworld USA: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/20/HNgnomemobile_1.html (also hit Computerworld, Networkworld and PC World USA, and Techworld UK.) Contains positive analyst quotes. And another: UMPC News: http://www.umpcportal.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=515 "Forget the technical details, what it really means is that nearly all the players in the mobile Linux 'arena' are now talking to each other and working together." - Jeff -- Open CeBIT 2007: Sydney, Australia http://www.opencebit.com.au/ "...and did you know that Twisties have real cheese in them?" - Dave "I didn't even think they had real twists in them!" - Andrew From jdub@perkypants.org Mon Apr 23 20:34:29 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org Delivered-To: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by menubar.gnome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5314A3D004 for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:34:08 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at gnome.org X-Amavis-OS-Fingerprint: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 2) (up: 111 hrs), (distance 12, link: ethernet/modem), [70.85.31.216] Received: from menubar.gnome.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (menubar.gnome.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 68FAE1180C4 for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:34:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from node.waugh.id.au (node.waugh.id.au [70.85.31.216]) by menubar.gnome.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 192FE118091 for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:34:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost.localdomain (unknown [12.44.170.10]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by node.waugh.id.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id 472053CFFA for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:33:02 +1000 (EST) Received: by localhost.localdomain (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 9AB07CD9F7; Mon, 23 Apr 2007 03:34:01 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 03:34:01 -0700 From: Jeff Waugh To: mobile-devel-list Subject: Going home, updates, downtime Message-ID: <20070423103401.GA6357@localhost> Mail-Followup-To: mobile-devel-list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) X-BeenThere: mobile-devel-list@gnome.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.8 Precedence: list List-Id: GNOME Mobile Platform development and discussion List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: mobile-devel-list-bounces@gnome.org Errors-To: mobile-devel-list-bounces@gnome.org Hey folks, I'm heading back on Tuesday, so just wanted to dump some thoughts/updates before I return home. I'm going to be out of the loop for a bit, and not just while I'm stuck on the plane... * Informa -- who ran OSiM last year, which received very positive reports from everyone I've spoken to -- have invited me to be part of their event advisory board (along with a bunch of other awesome folks), which is pretty cool. I don't really see this as a conflict of interest, as it supports our goals, but if anyone has concerns about it let me know. * Got some analyst briefings lined up, including one of Ovum's wireless analysts, which should be good. We've definitely stamped ourselves on the radar this week, with the launch and Intel's MID announcements! * Speaking of Intel, my radar is picking up more about the Ubuntu angle, so hopefully we'll hear from them soon. If anyone has contacts at Red Flag, please get in touch and invite them along. Historically we've been pretty bad at reaching out to our developer friends in Asia, so that's another where GMAE could lead the way. * I'm going to be flat out next week, as Pia and I are organising the Open CeBIT conference and exhibition in Sydney. Should be a blast, but GMAE is not going to get much of my headspace until the weekend after. Even then, I'll probably be recovering from belated jetlag. ;-) * In the meantime, I'm going to pull together the input I've received about desires for release plans (particularly the 'mobile' suite for 2.20), and community governance (as we're subtly different from the main project, but don't really want to be in the general case) and put it in a proposal for the group. I'll prioritise the release-team stuff, 'cos they'll need to know about the 'mobile' suite pretty soon. Please throw feedback my way so I can digest and adapt it. Sorry, late rambling. ;-) Thanks, - Jeff -- Open CeBIT 2007: Sydney, Australia http://www.opencebit.com.au/ "Whether you want to set fire to old institutions or to build whole new ones, nothing beats a good blog." - Doc Searls