LiMo Foundation News

  • Open Letter to the Wholesale Applications Community

     

    Dear Industry Colleagues:

    Further to the public announcement of 15 February 2010, I am very pleased to write this open letter to the initiators of the Wholesale Applications Community on behalf of the Board of LiMo Foundation offering a) our full support, b) our committed participation, and c) our immediate practical assistance in a spirit of whole-industry cooperation.

    It is clear to us that the highly complementary areas of focus, shared belief in true openness and common industry vision create an exceptional opportunity for deep and long-term collaboration between LiMo Foundation and the Wholesale Applications Community to release unfettered innovation across the industry and fully ignite the mobile internet in a way that is compelling and life-enhancing to consumers everywhere.

    LiMo Foundation was launched in 2007 as a constitutionally open, transparent and non-discriminatory industry consortium with the sole purpose of collaboratively delivering a competitive Linux-based device software platform to the industry upon which commercial innovation can freely thrive without brand or business model conflict with the underlying platform. Since LiMo’s launch, three major releases...
  • LiMo Foundation Handset Lineup Expands With New Feature-Rich Devices From ELSE, NEC, Panasonic

    Newest LiMo handsets combine style, durability, and in-demand high-performance functionality

    BARCELONA, Spain, February 15, 2010 – LiMo Foundation™, a global consortium of leading companies from throughout the mobile industry, today announced new LiMo compliant handsets from manufacturers ELSE, NEC, and Panasonic Mobile Communications. These models bring the number of LiMo devices announced to date to fifty.

    “We welcome the arrival of these innovative new devices which attest to the richness and versatility of LiMo Platform,” said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation. “The continued growth of LiMo devices is further endorsement of LiMo’s vision, mission, and technologies.”

    Designed to appeal to consumers seeking elegant, feature-rich handsets, the new models combine next-generation functionality and reliable performance in an array of sleek, sophisticated device designs. Integrating advanced user interface technologies and critical functionality and reliability elements such as keypad-to-touchpad conversion, high-megapixel auto-focus cameras, waterproofing, and extended battery life will ensure a more immersive...
  • Mobile Industry Leaders Collaborate for On-Time Delivery of R3 LiMo Platform

    Latest release of mobile industry’s only independent handset platform imminently available

    BARCELONA, Spain, February 15, 2010 – LiMo Foundation, a global consortium of leading companies from throughout the mobile industry, today announced the imminent availability of the new R3 release of LiMo Platform. The updated platform features new support for Location Based Services (LBS) and contact management and extends existing features including support for application management, advanced UI and multimedia technologies, and enhanced security and networking.

    “Delivery of R3 of LiMo Platform is a further important delivery milestone and again for LiMo Foundation demonstrates that powerful likeminded companies can work together practically to create a common platform that is evolved and governed through a truly open and independent process,” said Morgan Gillis, executive director of LiMo Foundation. “This latest update to the LiMo Platform also furthers LiMo’s leadership in commercially unifying mobile Linux technologies for the benefit of the whole industry.”

LiMo, License Compliance, and the GPL
Written by Andrew Savory, Open Source Manager, LiMo Foundation   
Monday, 07 December 2009 23:38

 

recent blog post by Peter Vescuso of Black Duck Software discussed the important issue of license compliance and what companies should do to achieve compliance. This resulted in some interesting comments and questions about LiMo Foundation's platform, which warrant a full post rather than brief comment responses.

So, on to the questions:

What will happen if some GPLv2 code finds its way to a much deeper part of the Windows kernel?

Whilst we can't comment on Microsoft's business strategies, it's worth noting an increasingly responsive and community-focussed approach to open source from Microsoft in recent months and years. There are many smart people at Microsoft who understand open source licensing and their commitments, and who are actively reaching out to open source projects to work with them. We can only hope to see increased openness in the future.

Is LiMo Foundation code Version 2 GPL and/or its derivatives GPL ?? I suspect it is... then where is the code ??? do you need to apply for 2K $ at least to get and develop code for the platform ??? is that compliant with GPL license ???

The LiMo platform includes code under a wide range of licenses, both proprietary and open source. As Lefty wrote, "The reference implementations in use by Foundation members contain upwards of 70% open source". The open source licenses are not just GPL - they include GPL, LGPL, MIT, BSD, X11 and many more.

We take our responsibilities under all these licenses, including the GPL v2, very seriously. We've used Black Duck's Protex product to help us with that. We constantly look at precisely what code is used, where it is used and how it is used.

The commenter asks "where is the code?"

LiMo as an organisation does not ship devices, and it is the responsibility of our member companies that do ship devices to make open source code available to anyone that has the device. The list of open source components used in the recently shipped Vodafone 360 H1 by Samsung can be found here. In addition, the source code for the open source software used within the device can be found at opensource.samsungmobile.com.

We want to go beyond this. LiMo is committed to working with open source projects. Our open source policy can be found on our own open source website, http://opensource.limofoundation.org/. We're intending to publish information listing the open source software components used in the LiMo Platform real soon - stay tuned for a separate blog post on that shortly!

LiMo's products seem to be primarily based upon GPL, how does LiMo address the GPL's requirements to redistribute source code based upon GPL code?

Hopefully the explanation above answers why the Foundation itself does not yet redistribute source code. It's important to understand the requirements of the GPL. A common misconception is that if you use the GPL, you must automatically release all your code, or even redistribute it. The FSF GPL FAQ answers this point succinctly: you only need to make source code available if you release it outside the organisation.

 

 

 

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The LiMo blog will include a rich assortment of entries reflecting perspectives that span market segments, geographies, and job responsibilities.  Our mission is to engage in direct conversation with a variety of stakeholders and thought leaders – this dialogue will be valuable as LiMo’s members work to collaboratively advance the LiMo Platform for the mobile industry.  The blog posts reflect the opinions of the individual bloggers, and not necessarily that of LiMo or its members.

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