[Updated Aug. 16] — This week's LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco is shaping up as a showcase for Linux cellphone-related products, alliances, and open source contributions. The barrage of phone-related announcements and demonstrations underscores the growing stature of Linux as a mobile phone operating system.

One of today's announcements notes that the Diffusion Group expects Linux to surpass Symbian, the current mobile phone OS marketshare leader, within four years.

Other phone-related LinuxWorld announcements as of this update include:

• In a LinuxWorld keynote address, Motorola VP of mobile device software Greg Besio said Motorola expects that within the next couple of years, Linux will power more than half of the phones it ships. Additionally, Linux is expected to pass current phone OS marketshare leader Symbian by 2010, Besio said. (details)
• Trolltech will ship the Greenphone, an “open” Linux-based phone (pictured above), in September. The device features a user-modifiable Linux OS, and is meant to jumpstart a third-party native application ecosystem for Linux-based mobile phones based on Trolltech's Qtopia Phone Edition (QPE) Linux mobile phone stack. (details)
• Orange Telecom, Europe's second-largest mobile operator, has approved a new Linux-based mobile phone stack for use on its entire network. (details)
• Access/PalmSource has open-sourced an SQL-based filesystem that it created to serve as a registry for the PalmSource-developed “Access Linux Platform” (ALP). The libsqlfs filesystem has lots of other potential applications, in addition to use in Linux-based mobile phones. (details)
• The Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS) and the OSDL's Mobile Linux Initiative (MLI) have pledged to align their organizations closely, to better improve and standardize Linux for mobile phones. (details)
• Access/PalmSource is inviting mobile application developers to join a new online community featuring technical and business resources for ALP. (details)
• Startup a la Mobile, announced last week that its Linux-based mobile phone stack is available now for customer evaluation, and that it would demonstrate its “Convergent Linux Platform” (CLP) at LinuxWorld. (details)
• PalmSource announced last month that developers interested in porting applications to PalmSource's Linux implementation for mobile phones could participate in a special “PalmSource Developer Day” at LinuxWorld. Attendees of the event will receive early access to the Access Linux Platform (ALP), and get hands-on experience building applications for the platform, PalmSource said. (details)

This story will be updated throughout the LinuxWorld show.

 
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