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    David Nagel: Linux is the FuturePosted By: Ryan on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 12:51:11 PM
IDG News Service conducted a highly interesting and revealing interview with PalmSource CEO David Nagel while at the 3GSM conference in Cannes, France. Nagel speaks on the new PalmSource offerings that target feature phones and smartphones, the benefits of the CMS acquisition and makes a bold statement about the future of the Palm OS moving to Linux.
Nagel also reveals that there are a number of products in development based on Palm OS Cobalt. He even goes as far to reveal that in the long term the Cobalt APIs and and all user interface programs will move to Linux, rather that the Cobalt micro-kernel. Some experts from the interview:
IDGNS: Are you primarily interested in using Linux in products targeted at the Chinese market or worldwide? Thanks to Chidozie Anyaoku for the tip!
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 His Wife Bought One?DevPOV @ 2/16/2005 1:20:56 PM #
LOL... I wonder if she went to Best Buy?  RE: His Wife Bought One?SeldomVisitor @ 2/16/2005 1:49:26 PM #
I wonder if her "smartphone" is PalmOS-based... Ooh ooh ooh... RE: His Wife Bought One?
if his wife uses a good camera like a canon with compact flash memory, then she will need a pda that accepts compact flash like a pocket pc. --- David RE: His Wife Bought One?
Why would she need a PDA that accepts bulky CompactFlash? All she would need to do, as most people who do digital photography will, is download the images to a PC and then save to a convenient SD card that's more convenient to carry around. RE: His Wife Bought One?
Sartre wrote: Why would she need a PDA that accepts bulky CompactFlash? All she would need to do, as most people who do digital photography will, is download the images to a PC and then save to a convenient SD card that's more convenient to carry around.
Gruß RE: His Wife Bought One?AdamaDBrown @ 2/17/2005 1:59:06 PM #
Very time consuming. Also tethers you to the PC. As for 'bulky CompactFlash', there are dual-slot PPCs that are not much larger than the T5. RE: His Wife Bought One?
Hey, I was shocked -- shocked, I say! -- when I saw that latest round of Black Ugly hp PPCs in a store and saw that in front-to-back thickness they match that new "skinless" Zire -- and yet they manage to have TWO slots instead of p1's stingy and idiotic one. (Wasn't the point of using SD to save space? WHAT saved space?!) RE: His Wife Bought One?
CF is not the only storage media in the universe, so saying someone uses a PDA to show their images does not assume a single format. RE: His Wife Bought One?AdamaDBrown @ 2/18/2005 2:06:40 AM #
However, CF is the de facto standard for any serious camera. You won't find Digital Rebels sporting SD slots. RE: His Biotch Bought One?The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/18/2005 3:16:57 AM #
Why would she need a PDA that accepts bulky CompactFlash? A few reasons: Least expensive and highest capacity media. Available (i.e. non-vaporware) expansion cards. Excellent data throughput. Compatible with the format used by the best digital cameras. It's odd to hear this story about Nagel's wife. I thought he was gay. Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model) *************************************************************************************
RE: His Wife Bought One?
Uwe Wrote: What a strange and time consuming workaround. You all are thinking like geeks and not photographers. He didn't say his wife used the PDA as a means to view all the images she took recently. He said she used it as photo album. Any photographer will tell you that he or she takes many more photos than are actually kept. Some are blurry, some just don't look good, and some crop off the tops of people's heads. Any of you consider that maybe, just maybe, she filters through her photos on her computer to begin with,and then loads the best of them to her PDA Photo Album? Granted, I could be wrong. Then again, so could those who assume that "doing digital photography" means she must be using a Digital Rebel rather than Powershot SD500. RE: His Wife Bought One?
However, if you have SD cards to use, you can get adaptors that will let an SD card be used in a CF card slot, hence, you CAN use an SD card with a Digital Rebel.
Since PalmSource doesn't sell the hardware, I'm glad his wife bought on... otherwise, she would have had to steal it ;-) 
Cobalt for phones?
I thought Cobalt was to be for High end devices, and Garnet to be a cheaper version to make it easier for phone developers to use? If they have supposedly shifted so much attention to Cobalt, why is Garnet still around? -Chris
"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" RE: Cobalt for phones?AdamaDBrown @ 2/16/2005 2:34:50 PM #
That was supposed to be more or less the plan: Cobalt for handhelds and high-end smartphones, and Garnet for more basic smartphones. Then they decided no, Cobalt is for ALL smartphones, it's the smartphone OS. No, wait, forget Cobalt, we want to run Linux. Yeah, that's it. It's no wonder that confidence in PalmSource is low, particularly amongst licensees. Between their pinballesqe future plans, their weasling around the hard questions--notice that Nagel didn't even come close to answering the question about whether Linux would squeeze out Cobalt?--and the general lack of inititive, they look like they don't know what they're doing or what they want to do. They need to get on the ball now, produce a single new OS that has support for things like WiFi, video hardware, etc., then convince PalmOne to produce some actual compelling hardware. It's the only way to reclaim the inititive, mind-share, and image that they've lost. RE: Cobalt for phones?
The spin-off (beheading??) of P1 & PalmSource was the single worst thing to ever happen to the platform, Yankowski aside. P1 was never a strong hardware company and now they have weak hardware further handicapped by patched-up OS 5 revisions and buggy filesystems etc. The Palm OS platform never enjoyed a strong licensee aside from Sony and now that they are gone, PalmSource has nothing to lean on. I think that only saving grace would be for some white knight to swoop in and pick up the pieces of both companies in one fell swoop OR for P1 to repurchase PalmSource and bring them back into the fold--but only after paring the PDA & Treo lineup to a few strong models. RE: Cobalt for phones?
>Cobalt for handhelds and high-end smartphones, and Garnet for more basic smartphones. Then they decided no, Cobalt is for ALL smartphones, it's the smartphone OS. No, wait, forget Cobalt, we want to run Linux. That's the best explanation of Nagel's convoluted strategy that I've ever heard. RE: Cobalt for phones?
"I think that only saving grace would be for some white knight to swoop in and pick up the pieces of both companies in one fell swoop OR for P1 to repurchase PalmSource and bring them back into the fold" No no no. If that's what it takes, it's not worth saving, let it die. If there's any chance for the platform, it's with Licensees the likes of HP and Dell. They can't/won't compete if the deck is stacked. PalmOne may suck on the hardware side, but they don't suck enough that any other licensees would compete with them in the platform with PalmOne having the inside edge on the OS. Jeeze they're bad enough as it is with holding their API cards close to their chest (reference the history of WiFi API's on the Tungsten C, and WiFi SD card driver issues on the other devices). And I guess I can't blame them. I DO blame Palmsource however. This year has been a colossal waste of time. The PalmOS economy is anything *but* enabled by PalmSource. If they can't get an OS out that captures and enables the hardware designers imaginations, and the licensees we *need* can't resist being on the outside of any longer, and PalmSource can't get those licensees into the platform, then stick a fork in us, we're done. No more artificial prop ups. Give me an HP or Dell class hardware product with BT+WiFi, and OS5x and I could be happy for another year while they get the OS kernel mess sorted out. But given no new licensees, and no miracles from PalmOne (now there's a long shot to bet on...), that's a wrap folks. Treo buyers will just slow things to a protracted, painful death. I dare pa1mOne to dump PalmOS. Do it and you BOTH die.The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/16/2005 9:47:14 PM #
The spin-off (beheading??) of P1 & PalmSource was the single worst thing to ever happen to the platform, Yankowski aside. P1 was never a strong hardware company and now they have weak hardware further handicapped by patched-up OS 5 revisions and buggy filesystems etc. The Palm OS platform never enjoyed a strong licensee aside from Sony and now that they are gone, PalmSource has nothing to lean on. I think that only saving grace would be for some white knight to swoop in and pick up the pieces of both companies in one fell swoop OR for P1 to repurchase PalmSource and bring them back into the fold--but only after paring the PDA & Treo lineup to a few strong models. The "split" made good economic sense at the time and made Palm a quick buck. Who cares about long term results if you're operating under a fatally flawed business model? If the sham split is dissolved, I know of a few Palm execs that will deserve to be sent to jail along with Martha Stewart...
HandEra. Dead. Killed by Palm's greed. Sony. Retreated to Japan. Battered by Sony's desire to consolidate product lines. Tapwave. Almost dead. Brutalized by poor retail presence, questionable business model and inadequate software support. About to be killed by Sony's PSP. Tapwave: your 15 minutes of (non)fame is up. Please exit stage left along the HandEra Pathway. Garmin. Turncoat. Switching to PPC. Smart. AlphaSmart. Near dead. Savaged by shaky business model. Samsung. Bored. Ignored by carriers and not serious about PalmOS commitment. Handspring. Dead. Born again in the Holy Palm Spirit, then Dead Again due to stagnant development of Treo 600. PalmSource could have been a valuable asset had management not made so many mistakes. BUt now it's spinning out of control. PalmLinux, PalmOS 6/Cobalt, PalmOS 5/Garnet, China MobileSoft PhoneOS, Bob... Bless their hearts! pa1mOne is a guppy hardware seller swimming in the PalmOS fish tank, floating in a sea of sharks. Expose themselves to REAL competition and they'll be devoured within a year. Go ahead, Palm: dump PalmOS and see what happens. Dumba$$es.
Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model) *************************************************************************************
RE: Cobalt for phones?
"The spin-off (beheading??) of P1 & PalmSource was the single worst thing to ever happen to the platform, Yankowski aside." No, the worst thing was PalmOS 5 and 6: it was an incredibly stupid move by Palm to try to develop their own OS for ARM rather than building on BSD and/or Linux from the start (or even a commercial kernel). PalmOS 5 based on Linux could have shipped sooner than it did, with the same degree of compatibility (since PalmOS 4 is already running emulated on top of PalmOS 5), and Palm could have spent the last several years doing what they do best: applications and libraries, rather than kernels. PalmLinux™ Pipedreams. Vs. Cobalt (available within WEEKS!)The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/21/2005 3:25:51 AM #
No, the worst thing was PalmOS 5 and 6: it was an incredibly stupid move by Palm to try to develop their own OS for ARM rather than building on BSD and/or Linux from the start (or even a commercial kernel). PalmOS 5 based on Linux could have shipped sooner than it did, with the same degree of compatibility (since PalmOS 4 is already running emulated on top of PalmOS 5), and Palm could have spent the last several years doing what they do best: applications and libraries, rather than kernels.
Nonsense. PalmOS 5 was well-executed and did the job required of it. A clean-sheet rewrite at that time would have cost Palm too much time. PalmOS 6, on the other hand should have been planned as PalmLinux from the very beginning. The fact that PalmOS 5 has stayed so capable over the years is a testament to PalmSource. If you think applications are one of the things that Palm "do best", you obviously are clueless. And PalmSource HAS been spending a lot of time looking at APIs etc over the past two years. Only problem is no one knows how portable the Cobalt frameworks will be to PalmLinux. At least Cobalt will finally be seen on a real device in March. Yawn.
Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model) *************************************************************************************
Wonder who's buying into the EXISTING CobaltSeldomVisitor @ 2/16/2005 1:47:48 PM #
What does this say about the "existing" Cobalt?...
Yow.
Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
Quoting Nagel: "When you build an open platform for mobile phones, you find yourself confronted with an extensive set of forward looking developments that you need to support, such as a whole variety of different micro processors and radio modules -- each requiring a significant amount of software to integrate with your basic platform. In the case of Linux, the work required to develop all these drivers is already done. Many chip makers do a reference port of their chips and create the software for integrating those chips to standard embedded Linux." Now we officially know why there aren't any Cobalt devices out there. Basically too little chips are supported. It's too much for the licensees to do. I guess PalmSource should have gone Linux long ago, instead of picking up BeOS. RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
Well, as he said there will be only an Linux KERNELL (if you know what it is) and they took all multimedia system from BeOS wich will remain intact in PalmOS for Linux. Actually what they'll replace in new system just will be a Kernel - with wide variety of drivers and open development wich will bust the simplicity of production of new devices and accesories. Don't blame their stupidity, they're much more clever then you think... RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
The kernel is the underlaying part of the OS that runs the low level I/O of the computer. From your answer, you are saying that the kernel is not really relevant. It may be to you, end user. in fact from that perspective the user won't see any difference between the original Cobalt and the Linux Cobalt (or whatever the name is). The kernel is very important for the hardware manifacturer: What's cool about the Linux kernel is that the supported drivers are there already, while basically no drivers are available for the BeOS based Cobalt. The drivers talk to the kernel. Also feature currently not implemented in cobalt and way needed and requested by the users (a filesystem to start...), are already there. So Cobalt may be the coolest thing, with the best multimedia features. But if the hardware support is poor you don't go anywhere. I don't think it is clever to invest a huge amount of money in developing a microkernel that didn't last very long (to actually be scrapped for Linux). A smarter move would have been to design the first kernel on Linux, or FreeBSD for Cobalt. In other words do what Apple (succesfully) did for OSX. Now they are late a year, there isn't any Cobalt device out, and we will have to wait another year to see the linux version. Now this doesn't sound very smart... although I must say: better later than never. RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
Well, what I say is "Cobalt Wasn't a Void development" though they'll not use its kernell, they'll use all tech above it. So it's better to go Be&Linux then just Linux. ____________________ Future Online! Sorry for my bad english :( RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
the kernal uses a secret recipe of 9 languages and debuggers, drenched in java, and outsourced atop a medley of solaris and aix.
--- David
Pic of Nagel doing what he does best
http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:Wi0ZfptuJmUJ:http://¬¤¸.adelaide.edu.au/pr/media/releases/2001/images/suckling.jpg RE: Pic of Nagel doing what he does best
LOL!!!! Is Nagel suckling on the T5 or is that the T5 suckling on Nagel? RE: Pic of Nagel doing what he does best
That's Nagel sucking out the very last drop of milk from the teat of Mother Palm.
Nagel: CELL chip is the future
I hope this CPU is on your radar!
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21304 Cellphone security?
RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
hackbod must be *really* snowed under with work that she hasn't popped in here to console us... RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
Nagel, Mace, Hackbod, et al are all staring out the window right now. RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
and where's our Chief Anti-competitive Officer Michael Mace? He's been as scarce as a kid on the back of a milk carton. Where *is* Michael Mace???The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/17/2005 11:26:36 PM #
Cane and Geeko: Please don't make fun of Mistress Hackborn and longtime Palm Rotation Engineer Michael Mace. - hackbod is a wonderful person, a great programmer and a "femme fatale" to boot! It's not her fault that Cobalt suffered the same fate as BeOS - it's just a coincidence that she also worked at Be. Yes, those of us who know PalmOS suggested Palm go the PalmLinux route three years ago, but it's time you stopped crying over spilt goo. Buy a TH55 and another one as a backup if you can afford it. That's as good as it's gonna get, Cane
This would all be hilarious if the mutilation of the PalmOS platform wasn't so sad. At least a lot of Palm execs got rich before everything collapsed. And between the UX50 and the TH55, there should be enough of a supply of good PDAs for enthusiasts to use for years to come. Now I know how Newton owners felt when crApple pulled the plug on that platform. Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model) *************************************************************************************
RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
I bet someone at palmone is reading this thread. If not, they should be. If I were CEO of palm one I would instantly go after market share currently held by mp3 players and video players. They are taking space on the counter that USED TO BE for PDA's ONLY! Just blatently copy the ipod and put a color OS5 palm in the same unit. Then for the videofiles, make a PalmLinux version that can play mpg, mpeg, wmv, avi, mov files, and also do WIFI and. And what's his name who wrote that brain book, cut him loose. Fire him. He may have invented the platform, but what has he done for it lately?
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