Re: Movial to enable an ARM Mobile Linux platform

[sampo nurmentaus movial fi]

Hello,

Thanks Antti for backing me up here!

One can not imaging the amount of email and questions I have got after the 
press releases we made.

Br,
Sampo

> Hi Lucas,
>
> Lucas Rocha wrote:
> > Hi Sampo,
> >
> > > Movial is working with ARM and partners to contribute to GNOME and existing
> > > projects to help the use and integration of open source technology with mobile
> > > platforms. This builds on existing work from open source developers and
> > > contributions from companies building mobile devices. The main contributions
> > > will be around the UI framework and browser technology. The libaries and
> > > techniques used are those familiar from Gnome Mobile stack. New mobile
> > > components we will be working with are components like HAL, Gnome Network
> > > Manager, Gnome Volume Manager and Mozilla based browser.
> >
> > Just some question:
> >
> > - What do you mean with "UI framework"? Something like Hildon, Sugar
> > or OpenMoko UI?
>
> That should probably have said: Application framework instead of UI
> framework :). Having one of the hildon, openmoko, sugar in there is not
> technically difficult, so if somebody really insists having them there
> (for portability or other reasons), then please raise your hands, but
> otherwise we will try to be as close to stock components as possible and
> if necessary, contribute to those stock components.
>
> We will of course have an "Example UI" on top of the framework which is
> now basically a couple of example applications: mediaplayer, browser,
> network-manager applet, battery status indicators etc. just to show that
> things work under the hood.
>
> > - Will you target any specific form-factors?
>
> Not really any specific nailed down targets. In the work that we do, we
> will try to solve the technically difficult obstacles on the framework
> level (read: not visible level) to have a good building block for any
> party interested.
>
> This platform already runs on different ARM hardwares which have
> different screen sizes.
>
> Because of great work done already in the framework level, by many
> individuals and companies, there's not that "much" work to be done
> there. Okay much is relative. One of the interesting components I see is
> Cairo, because also some versions of the Mozilla browser is using that
> for rendering. Mozilla activities is one major effort here as well.
>
> > > This work aims at supporting existing efforts in building a complete set of
> > > open source components targeting mobile platforms instead of starting 'yet
> > > another new project'. ARM processors are widely used in existing mobile
> > > platforms where power, performance and integration are key. Cooperation with
> > > ARM and its partners should help in making GNOME and related open source
> > > projects more successful in building mobile devices using open source software
> > > components. An important goal for the work being done is to contribute to the
> > > respective opensource projects and thus to contribute in having a solid and
> > > opensource Gnome Mobile stack.
> >
> > Do you have any architecture/design docs online or a more specific plan?
>
> Yes, but not available in the public yet :| We're in the beginning of a
> path still. I do not want to give you any dates either, because that
> might backfire ;) but if you want to influence on a particular
> architectural design issue, now would be a good time :)
>
> > > Please feel free to ask questions, send comments and talk about the subjects
> > > with ARM or Movial guys on various mailing lists and IRC channels.
> >
> > I'm just curious. :-)
> >
> > --lucasr
>
> Although I didn't give you much technical answers, I hope I at least
> raised your curiosity level a bit ;)
>
> IMHO the main point is that people and companies are interested in the
> Gnome Mobile stack and are willing to put effort and resources on to
> that and that's really good.
>
> / Antti