LiMo Foundation Blog

We’re at an interesting time in technology, particularly in mobile technology. As hardware prices continue to fall and hardware capabilities continue to rise, mobile devices that can run more advanced Operating Systems than the RTOS-style software, which has traditionally powered “feature phones” - the most-sold price point for devices globally - are pushing down into the mainstream more and more.

Phones running LiMo-compliant Platforms, phones running Android, and Apple’s iPhone line, are all proliferating, but as they proliferate they also evolve. At last year’s eComm conference in Amsterdam, one speaker likened the evolution of the communications side of the mobile device ecosystem to the evolution seen in the dinosaurs—and to their eventual extinction. Technologies are born, develop, evolve, and become extinct as their “niches” are taken away by more “fit” technologies.

We’re seeing much the same in mobile devices as well, and we’ll continue to see it over the next several years. In the “Cambrian explosion”, more species of a wider variety of sorts came into existence over the shortest time span ever seen in evolutionary history. Of course, most of those species eventually became extinct or adapted in major ways by the end of this period.

First, device form-factors and capabilities will continue to develop in a dramatic fashion.

This blog provides some quick/ad-hoc comments on the Apple/HTC patent fight.

Analysis of the patents in suit, and their potential applicability to HTC product (and Android...), can be found elsewhere.

There has also been considerable speculation as to Apple’s “end game” (apparently protection of innovation may not be the motivation!)

The use by Apple of the ITC as one of the forums in which to assert their grievances/patents is noteworthy.  For those not familiar with the US International Trade Commission (“ITC”) it’s a quasi judicial/administrative body designed to prevent counterfeit (and US patent infringing) product getting into the US. Expedited process rules mean “investigations” (as cases are known) are concluded quicker, and more cost effectively, than cases in the US Courts. The ITC can’t award damages but can, if a complaint is upheld, issue an order barring the import (by the respondent – HTC here) into the US of infringing product – a draconian remedy if ever there was one!

As is usual, Apple has also issued US District Court proceedings (in Delaware) against HTC.  This is to recover damages (money...) but will take longer to conclude than the ITC case.

It’s also likely that a third battle front will be opened, by HTC, in the US Patent Office, where they could seek re-examination of some of the patents being asserted by Apple. Any successful re-examinations could, at least in part, help frustrate (or at least slow down) the ITC and Court cases.

Settlement can never be discounted in disputes such as this, but the initial soundings mean this looks unlikely in the short/mid-term.

I’ll monitor progression of this one with interest.

This is most certainly not the umpteenth article you will be reading about Mobile World Congress 2010 this week – everybody’s got their take on what the highlights of the events were.

For me personally, the following caught my attention:

The geeks do PR (and apparently still no evil)!!

Google delightfully stole the limelight while Nokia was sulking away in their posh Barcelona hotel suite. (But hey, GSMA is really starting to push the boundaries….is anybody listening?) Coming back to Google, Eric Schmidt delivered a sensational keynote presentation on Tuesday – “Mobile First” and make sure you stand right in the intersection between Computing, Connectivity and Cloud. Gosh, can’t these guys suffer from the “demo effect”? They just sailed through all these speech and image recognition demos – really cool stuff!!

The WAVE that rides the ocean (BADA)

Samsung’s WAVE device based on the BADA Platform hit the Spanish Mediterranean city with all the fireworks or should I say all the splashes – Super Amoled, Integrated Address Book, Social Networking Hub – you name it, it’s got it……..except for…… multi-touch (damn Apple and its patents!!)

The giant wakes up from its slumber

In a desperate attempt to reverse its flailing smartphone platform unit, Microsoft rushed` to deliver Windows Phone 7.0. Ok, I admit it’s cool (except for the name) – it’s something I’d like to play with(checkout Zune, XBOX and Bing on the device) but hey, didn’t Apple do something similar about 2 years ago. More importantly, why are the PC and Internet companies so intent on turning the traditional handset manufacturers into fulfilment houses and the operators into dumb pipes? (I know Eric, you said they are valuable partners)

We are not dumb pipes!!

At this week’s LiMo meetings at Mobile World Congress, the LiMo membership elected LiMo’s 2010 Board of Directors and 2010 Officers.The following companies will comprise the 2010 LiMo Board of Directors:

• ACCESS
• Azingo
• LG
• NEC (Founder)
• NTT DOCOMO (Founder)
• Panasonic (Founder)
• Samsung (Founder)
• SK Telecom
• Telefónica
• Verizon
• Vodafone (Founder)
• Wind River

LiMo Foundation’s 2010 officers are:

• Executive Director: Morgan Gillis, LiMo Foundation
• Chairperson: Kiyohito Nagata, NTT DOCOMO
• Vice Chairperson: Sun Gi Hong, Samsung
• Vice Chairperson: Phillip Carter, Vodafone
• Treasurer: Ryoichi Sugimura, Panasonic
• Corporate Secretary: Alastair Sheehan, LiMo Foundation

Congratulations to all of the board companies and officers - we'll look forward to their leadership throughout 2010.

LiMo Foundation has recently published a new version of the LiMo Platform and SDK Roadmap that describes our plans for the Release 3.0 of LiMo Platform in the near future, as well as information on a further release of the Platform and associated SDKs due later in 2010.

Roadmapping within an organisation such as LiMo that relies on voluntary contributions from its members is a significantly different activity from roadmapping within a conventional software company. In this post I'll briefly explore some of these differences.

Within a conventional software company, the roadmapping activity is ”conceptually” simple - in essence it's a negotiation between the marketing/requirements function of the company (which acts as a proxy for the customer) and the engineering/delivery function of the company. (As an aside the level of politeness and constructiveness in which this negotiation is conducted tells you a lot about the general health and likely effectiveness of a company; watch out if you're working inside a company where this negotiation is acrimonious and is conducted at full volume!).

The marketing/requirements side often need to strike a balance between serving the company's existing market and customer base versus attempting to address new markets and pursue new customers. In a company that has a clearly defined business and product strategy in place, this debate can be conducted in a structured and considered way. But in the absence of such strategies, or if the organisation as a whole does not buy into the strategies that are in place, then this debate can lead to a roadmap that satisfies no-one.

In Part 1 of this 2 part series, we looked at the circumstances whereby an open source strategy would make sense, the reason why “open is free” is false notion, the importance of choosing the right open source development model, contribution strategy and the license that best suits  you.

Protect your reputation - don’t contribute bad code

Always remember you only have one reputation and while it takes a long time to build, it can vanish in seconds.  It is just as important to test and debug code contributions to the community as it is for internal releases.  Contribute buggy code and you will quickly be seen as a poor community member and your code may not be integrated into future baseline releases.  Other impacts may include your ability to attract the right talent to your business, especially if you are looking to hire from within the open source community or on your overall brand especially if software quality is an essential brand ingredient.  That said, releasing alpha and beta code is perfectly acceptable providing you make it clear that this is what it is and document the known issues.   So, keep it clean, protect your reputation and you’ll become a respected member of the community.

Identify the right business model

The Ancient Greeks created democracy (or so I understand), and the concept has certainly stood the test of time. The establishment of democracy brings with it openness, transparency and empowerment to those that reside within the boundaries of the democracy.The French philosopher, Charles Montesquieu, observed that for a democracy to function, its existence requires a virtuous people where the characteristic means of achieving cooperation is the voluntary observance, not of laws, but of informal codes of conduct.

Such parallels with the LiMo Foundation are striking, for example LiMo has recently seen the  commercialisation of the second release (R2) of the LiMo Platform which was a result of multiple members working collaboratively together in a way that complied with the LiMo Bylaws, but importantly, the collaboration was in a much  deeper and more complex way than those defined by the LiMo Foundation Bylaws.

Another example of democracy in action within LiMo is the LiMo Foundation Board Election that determines which members will have seats on the LiMo Foundation Board during a particular year.  The election takes place during the Annual All Members’ Meeting in Barcelona to coincide with the Mobile World Congress event.  This year, the All Members Meeting will be held on Monday 15th February 2010 and will be followed by an Open Industry Event at 17:00 at the Barcelo Sants Hotel. If you would like to attend, please contact our Business Development Director, Andy Bush ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) to discuss further.

In the last few years the open source software movement has grown significantly from a trail-blazing group of visionaries to a mainstream movement that is touching almost all areas of the desk, server and mobile software worlds.Over the past decade Teleca has engaged in a wide range of open source mobile software projects and communities such as Android, Maemo, OpenMoko, etc. In this article, we attempt to use this experience to help you to successfully leverage open source software while avoiding common pitfalls and leave a mutually beneficial legacy for the open source software community.

In Part 1 of the article we’ll look at why you should or should not leverage open source, the “open is free” misperception, choosing the right open source development model, contribution strategy and the license that is best suited to you.

Why?  Rather than why not?

It is always extremely important to know why you have decided to take a particular course of action and using open source software is no different.  However, it is far too common to hear "why not" as the answer when asking company’s about their motivations to engage with open source communities.  As this article will highlight using open source software does not just impact a company’s R&D organisation but frequently touches many other functions as well.  It is therefore, vital to have a clear understanding as to why leveraging open source software is the right option for you.  This will also help to shape individuals' actions, provide them with guidance and help the company as a whole to shape its wider activities with regards to open source community involvement.

You are developing a Web application on a mobile device, however the Javascript is failing and you don't know why. Naturally you want to attach a debugger, set some break points and debug your application. Like you do already with Firebug.

However you can't do this on any mobile device I can think of!

Sure you can add alerts and "printf" your way to the answer, though that's an inefficient use of your time. Projects are likely to fail without a debugger.

And yet no Web runtime on a mobile device offers this facility. Failing Javascript is all the rage right now, since there is a bunch of fresh Javascript APIs being made available to Web developers.

Enter the BONDI SDK

LiMo Foundation and its Members owe a huge debt to the global Open Source communities that have built the software that lies at the core of all Linux distributions.  The economic significance of this collective effort was analysed in a White Paper produced by the Foundation earlier this year .  We acknowledge the obligations we have in relation to the use of Open Source software in the LiMo Foundation platform within our Open Source Policy available on our Open Source website.

Several of our Members have a particularly strong Open Source heritage and are actively involved within the community.  Lefty of ACCESS, who is one such Member, blogged after attending GCDS about the fact that a significant proportion of the LiMo Foundation R2 platform comprises community Open Source code.  Our Members who produce R2-based products will build on this source code.  As Andrew Savory, our Open Source Manager, pointed out a few days ago, LiMo Foundation itself could satisfy the terms of our obligations to the community by leaving it to our members to make the source code available, as Samsung have done in relation to the Vodafone 360 H1 handset here.