Open source Linux software has been a great boon to mobile device makers and developers, just look at the growth of Android devices as Exhibit A. But are there too many different mobile implementations of Linux?
Mobile technology provider Qualcomm thinks the answer is yes. At the LinuxCon conference, Qualcomm executive Rob Chandhok said that mobile Linux needs a common base at the low level of the stack so developers won’t have to optimize separately for the Android, MeeGo and LiMO mobile Linux platforms.
BOSTON
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Linux is broadly available on mobile devices, but competing implementations could lead to problems down the road for developers and confusion for customers, according to a Qualcomm executive.
“There is some fragmentation and that’s a challenge. There is no mobile equivalent of x86,” said Rob Chandhok, president of the Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), a division of chip and mobile phone technology provider Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM).