Motorola's use of Linux in mobile phones complies with the letter but not the spirit of the GPL, a Newsforge editorial by Nathan Willis suggests. Willis believes Motorola should help the open source community add value to its Linux-based phones.

According to Willis, both Symbian and Microsoft supply developer kits that help users and developers write software for their phones. And, many other consumer devices based on Linux have gained from open source community contributions, Willis notes.

Motorola, in contrast, interposes an “EZX” middleware layer that makes it challenging, if not impossible, to add native Linux applications to Motorola phones, something Harold Welte's OpenEZX project has tried without success to do, Willis says.

One possible explanation, not noted by Willis, is that federal law forbids US companies from selling radio devices that, after passing FCC certification, are susceptible to modifications of power, range, frequency, or other charactistics that could affect user health or public safety.

Motorola's Chief Architect of Mobile devices, Mark VandenBrink, told LinuxDevices last August that Motorola had no immediate plans to support native Linux applications on its phones, in part due to carrier concerns about network health, security, and interoperability. VandenBrink also stated, “For Motorola, JVM is where the third-party apps are.”

US laws notwithstanding, several organizations devoted to creating more open, standardized Linux phone software platforms have recently sprung up, including the LiPS mobile phone consortium, and the OSDL's Mobile Linux Initiative.

Willis's Newsforge editorial can be found here.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.