LiMo Foundation Blog

I just returned from the Open Source in Mobile (OSiM) conference in Amsterdam. It was an exciting and informative event, and provided a unique view of an industry in the midst of an open source revolution.  More than any other industry, the mobile sector is aggressively leveraging open source to propel the rapid pace of innovation they require – after all, the next generation of computing is at stake here.  Web-based companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter led the way in the use of open source for infrastructure. But sophisticated mobile devices and the complex service networks behind them are stretching and testing open source at new levels.

Listen to a podcast of my thoughts and observations about the OSiM conference here: http://ducks.blackducksoftware.com/%7Ewebmedia/_Podcasts/BDS-Peter-Vescuso-9-18-09.mp3

For me, the key takeaways from OSiM are the new pragmatism and sophistication in the use of open source in multi-source development, and the significant success OSS has enabled in terms of innovation.

In general, wide-eyed idealism seems to have given way to a more practical approach. Participants seemed eager to dispel naïve notions of open source as “perfect and free” (a quote from Art Landro – more below), and focus on the real and significant benefits it enables along with the strategy required for success.

I was at OSiM last year in Berlin, which bubbled much more with unbridled enthusiasm for OSS. Little of that this year, and no ideological debates, but plenty of “here’s what it really takes to be successful” with open source.

The best expression of this pragmatism was offered by Art Landro, EVP of WW Field Op’s at MontaVista. Art put his finger on the pulse of the conference when he reflected that “the general misperception of open source is that it’s perfect and free.” Art and MontaVista spend their waking hours addressing imperfections (and running WW Field Op’s breeds pragmatismJ). Art offered that Linux has 5,000 contributors and 11 million lines of code with 20,000 changes made every day. With all those moving parts, there is clearly a need for MontaVista to provide a rock solid embedded Linux platform that allows developers the freedom to focus on their work rather than the underlying O/S.

But Art was only one of many voices of pragmatism. An excellent presentation with a very practical bent was given by LiMo’s own Mal Minhas (CTO) called “Mobile Open Source Economic Analysis". Mal reviewed the analysis he’s done on what it would cost to develop various open source projects used in many mobile solution stacks such as the Gnome Tool Kit (cost $30M), GStreamer ($45M) and Webkit ($89M). Recognizing the potential of community development to create powerful open software platforms, Mal made an appeal for cooperation on under-developed areas/functions that can help propel the success of mobility – geo location (GeoClue), telephony (ofono) and UI framework (Clutter). As most of these technologies are in the process of moving below the value line, they no longer constitute differentiation/value add, and therefore, represent natural areas for cooperation.

I had a good discussion with Adriaan de Groot of the Free Software Foundation – Europe (FSF-E). FSF –E are planning a series of workshops in 2010 to counsel corporate lawyers and development management on open source best practices. FSF-E has a decidedly pragmatic view that embraces all types of open source licenses and their role in commercial development. These workshops will be well received.

I participated on a panel discussion on “convergence” with Itai Dadon of Texas Instruments, Lars Kurth of the Symbian Foundation, Michel Piquemal of Access, and John Riordan of Constant Dialog AG. Convergence is happening in many dimensions, including devices and services between desktops, netbooks, and Smartphones, as well as convergence of the traditional fixed-wireline-broadband networks, all enabled by open source and open standards.

Statistics from the mobile industry are always fascinating and reflect how rapidly computing is changing. A few noteworthy stats:

– 4.7 billion people are now covered by wireless

– More people access the Internet with wireless devices than from computers

– 50% of mobile traffic in the US arises from social networking sites

– High-end Smartphones today have as much computing power as powerful desktops from 2000

It’s clear that phone calls are now an incidental part of the utility of mobile devices.

Open source is fundamentally changing software development and new product innovation and there’s no better industry than mobile to watch it work its magic.

Hats off to Informa for putting on a top notch event – this is one of the best business-oriented open source conferences I’ve attended.