Comments on: More Details on the ACCESS Linux Platform

And the "PalmOS Emulator" is sitting on top of the Linux module of this ComponentOS. POSE-clone on Linux??? That would be about as crude a solution as Copilot CE was for running PalmOS apps on WinCE devices 6 years ago!

Please tell me this is a joke.

TVoR

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Not really. It's more of a translator than an emulator.

http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/docs/palmos5/os5overview.html#pace

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Exactly. We developers haven't really been able to write ARM native applications because Palm only gave us very limited capabilities and tools to do so. We were expected to keep using the old API and to let our apps run in 68k compatibility mode. The big deal about Cobalt for developers was that our apps would finally compile to ARM native executables.

ALP, like Cobalt, is enabling (and encouraging) developers to start writing native code, but also will enable most of the old apps to run in the 68k emulated mode.

I was relieved to read that all the built-in apps will be written or rewritten in the MAX API. The success of this platform is going to ride on the success of the MAX framework.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

I'm aware of that.

My guess--and it's only a guess: ARMlets/PNOlets will not be encompassed by what PalmSource refers to as the "well-behaved" Palm OS applications that will run in emulation on ALP. I'd be interested in hearing other theories from developers about what the "well-behaved" restriction might entail. Palm developers will recall that similar language was used to describe Palm OS 4 code that would run correctly in PACE when OS5 was coming out. But something tells me they're not talking about whether your code was written against a 3.x SDK when they tell you it might not be well behaved enough for ALP.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

What I care is that some good ideas and concepts from PalmOS are being transfered into this more modern platform, which will allow us users to have it available (in Palms or other HW) and not be forced to use Windows philosophy on handhelds.

And merging it with "cool" technologies, like Linux GTK and Java will provide even broader range of apps, and in the future, use of the same platform for "hybrid devices", like sub-notebook phones and similar.

Nenad

Palm are in a strange position.

Because ALP is the "son of PalmOS", there are tremendous expectations that Palm would license the product, so in order to keep even a modicum of bargaining power, Palm might decide to play it coy.

Anyway, they don't really want to commit to ALP before it's quality is known, since that cannot possibly enhance either their bargaining position... or the code quality of ALP.

------
"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

To go from owning PalmOS to stupidly losing control of PalmOS and then seeing PalmOS abandoned/frozen in time by its new masters - all within just a couple years - has gotta hurt. PalmOS has now been relegated to being a secondary feature of a cellphone OS. We will apparently never see any further advances in PalmOS beyond what we now have in current PalmOS 5 devices.

We have just witnessed announcement of the death of PalmOS. While the OS may remain technically alive and on life support, plugged into this new FrankensteinOS, in reality PalmOS is now brain dead because of Access' decisions.

***********************************************************************

PalmOS

Born 1996
Died 2006

R.I.P.

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

I can say pretty confidently that Palm proper WILL NOT focus its efforts on WinMob. The only real reason (i think) palm used WinMob on the Treo 700w it that it is trying to grab as much smartphone marketshare as it possibly can before the traditional PPC companies jump onto the bandwagon.

Palm probably wont be too quick to comment on ALP, given it was "Severely burned" before. In the end, Palm is almost certain to continue to use whatever is the most profitable continuation of the PalmOS family line.

Basically, while this "ALP" will have a different set of internal organs, we can be pretty sure that it will have the same "Soul" as the genuine PalmOS. Either way, it will be months before any useful information is available... So we should just wait patiently.

> PalmOS

> Born 1996
> Died 2006

> R.I.P.

If TVoR truly believes the Palm OS is dead, he wouldn't waste another minute posting to Palm OS forums.

Silence from TVoR on Palm OS forums would genuinely indicate that he believes the Palm OS is dead.

I wouldn't waste time posting in forums about dead operating systems. Why does he?

So here's the truth: TVoR LOVES the Palm OS. Look at how many postings he makes. TVoR is OBSESSED with the Palm OS. He's its number one fan. TVoR really digs Garnet. He's in a corner right now inappropriately fondling a Tungsten T3.

When TVoR and his ilk go silent, I'll genuinely worry about the future of the Palm OS.

Eric Lyons
Proud Palm OS Developer

Since when were morons entitled to the Royal "We"??? :)

------
"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

May You Live in Interesting Times

MAX represents a completely new mobile OS with its own set of APIs. I expect MAX to be like a stripped-down, more efficient version of WinCE or EPOC. It has basically NOTHING to do with Cobalt. Almost all traces of Cobalt will be expunged because the failures PalmSource experienced in trying to use scavenged bits and pieces of Cobalt to make PalmLinux proved it was not worth the hassle. You simply can't cobble together bits and pieces of code to create a modern OS. PalmSource was naive (or mendacious?) to claim they could. I'll let Dianne Hackborn's previous absurd comments on how supposedly simple it would be to salmage Cobalt speak for themselves. Access was not dumb enough to attempt to salvage a buggy incomplete OS and integrate this into their future core product. Failure of Cobalt would have bankrupted the company.

Access presented its plans for a new mobile OS a couple years ago and they would have started work on it at that time. The only thing the PalmSource purchse adds is a fourth arm (PalmOS) to what otherwise would have been a tripod MODULAR OS ("MAX, Linux distro, Java).

It's not like Access just thought of this yesterday! I think by acquiring PalmOS (an environment that is well known and easy to write for), Access is hedging their bets + buying insurance for their mobile platform that otherwise may have been shunned by carriers and cellphone makers if it came only with a brand new environment (MAX).

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Most developers took a wait and see attitude towards Cobalt once they started to realize that it was all hype and that no devices were materializing from the Vapor. Why spend hundreds of hours learning how to code for new APIs and then updating your applications when there are NO DEVICES that actually work with your updated code? Anyone that spent any time learning how to code for Cobalt must be feeling pretty pi$$ed off right now.

If I was a professional developer, I would keep coding for PalmOS 5 (without any ARM-native code) and start porting my apps to Windows Mobile (as many developers have done over the past 2 years). Also, Beersy previously made an excellent point about the flexibility of SuperWaba - it has evolved into a very solid, flexible platform and epitomizes the "write once, run everywhere" ideal that Java has failed to deliver. I would probably look at using SuperWaba for simpler in-house custom app development to be deployed on a variety of hardware and possibly even for use in more ambitious programs as well.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Instead, since there's no way to make contributions here that don't get flamed in the crudest, most infantile ways by the trolls, those who do want to have on-topic discussion are forced to fend for ourselves, which often reduces the signal-to-noise ratio even more. I'm not claiming that I'm standing on any kind of high ground here, by the way, but I refuse to be a sap and I'm unwilling to relinquish the forum to those whose comments are designed to put an end to real discussion.

It's a shame. And, yes, of course I'll get flamed for this... and nothing will be done about it.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

you must like urinals because you're here posting 24/7. how do you ever get any work done for your "business"? do you ever even leave the house?

don't insult Ryan and everyone else who posts here. if you don't like the site, just leave.

nobody here wants to read your endless apologist propaganda anyway. you are neither informative or entertaining. please do us all a favor and go to 1src or brighthand with the rest of the blind cheerleaders.

thank you and goodbye.

you're peaches!

There is an alternative, skippy, and you're well aware of it. You could drop the "dwelling it its parents basement, behaving like a loser from an r crumb comix" attitude and stick to the topic.

Going for the scatalogical in an attempt to get a rise out of people is old, Skippy; isn't working for you; and, as you can see, nobody finds you funny anymore.

You really need to grow up and get out of the basement.

HTH HAND

May You Live in Interesting Times

And when you leave, Beersy please spare us the dramatic announcement that you're leaving in a huff.

nobody here wants to read your endless apologist propaganda anyway. you are neither informative or entertaining. please do us all a favor and go to 1src or brighthand with the rest of the blind cheerleaders.

While Beersy's not quite as snivelling as Kirvin and his preteen FanKlub, some of the rationalizations Beersy comes up with to explain the idiocy at Palm/PalmSource are downright hilarious

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

you're peaches!

Close but no... cigar. I could tell you but then you'd probably tell Dianne and then she'd probably kill you, me and then herself. ;-O

http://www.angryredplanet.com/~hackbod/rodney/story.html

http://www.angryredplanet.com/~hackbod/

There is an alternative, skippy, and you're well aware of it. You could drop the "dwelling it its parents basement, behaving like a loser from an r crumb comix" attitude and stick to the topic.

Going for the scatalogical in an attempt to get a rise out of people is old, Skippy; isn't working for you; and, as you can see, nobody finds you funny anymore.

You really need to grow up and get out of the basement.

No, Marty - YOU need to "grow up" and stop bashing the he11 out of PalmSource in public. Do you enjoy kicking companies when they're down (and out)?

Take care, Buddy. By the way, do you have a decent lawyer? Just wonderin'. No reason.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

I do moderate the comments here. I really don't delete anything unless I find it offensive or potentially abusive. You're all welcome to post whatever you want and i like to keep the discussions open but I just want members to be respectful to each other and keep the profanity to a minimum. It would be nice if we could keep the joking around on a more PG13/R level rather than some of the triple xxx/goatse outbursts I have to delete. If there is ever anything offensive posted that I haven't caught send me a message and I'll take care of it as soon as possible.

-Ryan

Dang, but this just came off to me as hillarious. One of those funny-because-it's-true sort of things I guess.

Ryan, the effort is apprecciated. I, for one, think that this place is doing pretty good--hard as that might be to repeat with a straight face after reading some of the more unclean screeds posted around here. But in my experience, some leeway is better than stomping on the brakes as soon as somebody goes out of bounds. If you ever want to see an example of over-the-top moderation, go over to PocketPCThoughts and brush up against one of the forbidden subjects, such as politics or religion. I once had a post over there deleted for talking about the relative value of US government spending on nationbuilding versus national infrastructure. Yes, it was really as dry as it sounds. Back on topic, though, PIC may get spicy, but it's also considerably more lively and interesting than some other sites, and you can still find some really interesting discussion despite the noise ratio.

Me, too.

Though sometimes I wonder about a few posters' strange attitudes - seems like a waste of fingertips to me - all those very same posters OFTEN post actual good-to-read information/discussion/opinions.

Enough with the "Ban him! Ban Him! Burn Him!" talk.

No. Go look at slashdot and you'll see what I mean.

Just offering an alternative to moderation by the site editor. There are probably others. And nothing is going to be perfect.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

That said, I've never been on the receiving end of an Internet flamewar, and can't really speak from personal experience. So sorry if I've offended anyone with that. But I'm of an age (22) where scatological humour is still funny.

Well said..

All this talk about "banning" is just tempting me to biotchslap Marty and Beersy unconscious. Again.

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

How rude! (TM Jarjar Binks)

Ivan

DIE, JARJAR, DIE!!!!!!!!!!!

http://tinyurl.com/k9c3k

http://tinyurl.com/as2k4

http://tinyurl.com/4qj22

http://tinyurl.com/4stz3

http://tinyurl.com/onnz8

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

you're just a train wreck in slow motion, skippy, and you've used up your entertainment value.

Thank you for that erudite analysis, Marty old chap. Your trenchant assessments and pithy comments are always welcome. Tell me, were you smoking a pipe, sipping cognac and wearing a tweed jacket in the East Wing study when you









SCRAWLED your latest screed? Inquiring minds want to know.

TVoR

P.S. It's nice to see that you've toned down your PalmSource bashing a notch or 10. Even though you're freshly (and thoroughly) chastened, can you bring back Smarmy Marty once in a while for old times sake?

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

go play in traffic

May You Live in Interesting Times

"...the outrageous, often insulting things he [TVoR] writes are *designed* to provoke people into reacting, which is just more entertainment for him... And people here fall for it!"

Then Voice does exactly that:
"People like you, Jeff Kirvin, BubbaSteve, Dollface Dianne, David S., Beersy, etc all come here looking for what I'm giving you. Now get back on your knees and lick my boots some more, Marty."

Everybody here *knows* he's not serious, right? That he is just ****-stirring? Apparently not Marty:

"um, no skippy, they don't. that's the problem with your sad little fantasy, and what makes you so clearly an r. crumb loser."

Mate! Honestly. How could you take a joke like that seriously in the first place? [shakes head] Not a 'fantasy', but a joke.

There was a recent news article ( http://tinyurl.com/7gjj2 ) that describe how the "tone" of around 50 percent of emails are misinterpreted by the reader. I wonder if that's the problem that starts a lot of 'net flamewars?

Tim Carroll
Your friendly customer service robot
(and big Treo fan)

I realize Skippy's not serious. I also know that he is not funny.

He's a sad little boy, looking for attention from the adults, and the word for people who humor him is 'enabler'.

You might be young enough to be amused by purile behavior, but after 23 years on the net, I find it tedious and juvenile. Worse than that, Skippy is boring. He's a one-trick pony, a broken record of scatological remarks.

It is possible to be funny without being insulting, and to be entertaining without being abusive.

Skippy's neither funny nor entertaining. He is merely insulting and abusive. He truely is an R. Crumb loser, living in a fantasy where he thinks he's clever and witty rather than tedious and repetitive.

The place for Skippy's kind of "humor" is a 6th grade playground. It's time for Skippy to grow up and learn some real humor.

May You Live in Interesting Times

Well, that kinda sums up the daily chanting of 'Palm is doomed' around here. Daily, for how many years now?

> And I think TVoR is such a regular fixture here that if he left, you'd miss him. :P

Maybe. But don't forget that people like The Vat of Refuse use up a lot of bandwidth (in terms of having to wade through all the dross). They also take pride in chasing away other contributors. (Remember all the boasts about how she stared down that mikecane guy?).

As for losing atmosphere, well that has already happened here at PIC. Long time ago, now.

I remember when PIC was always a good site for checking what users were doing with sofware, the exploits of intrepid hackers, what accessories were any use, etc. The main articles still appear as before - but the comments almost always regress back to the same old 'Palm is doomed' theme (whether it has any relevance to the article or not) - and this drowns out practically all other comments.

And let's not forget the asphyxiating 'political correctness' around here. Once the daily 'Palm is doomed' chorus gets going, anyone who doesn't toe the line is shouted down, called foul names, subjected to nonsense threats (mostly to do with lubricants or lack thereof), etc, etc.

Of course, cowering behind the first rank of provocateurs, there are the lesser trolls whose only 'contribution' is to haul out again the same old marketing spin from pocketpcthoughts.com ... day in day out, over and over again. What's so entertaining about that?

This is what you call atmosphere? I call it smog-haze.

I hope you will forgive my outburst; it's nothing personal. It's just that I miss the old PIC, with its sense of community, sharing of ideas and experiences.

Surur, I don't see you getting scatalogical in an attempt to make your points about WM, for instance.

It is possible to have entertaining but informed discussion without behavior that belongs on a 6th grade playground, not a web forum.

The problem with Skippy is that his entire shtick consists of name calling and rude sex remarks. It loses the shock value on the 2nd repetition, and becomes boring on the third. Yet he goes on for weeks at a time on the same tedious insults.

Would I miss skippy if he were gone? Maybe. Would I miss his tedious sexual baiting and juvenile insults? Not a bit.

And no, I don't think slashdot's moderation system is any sort of solution. slashdot's a cesspool of a different sort, but it's still a cesspool.

May You Live in Interesting Times

You underestimate TVR's passion and talent for wasting time on pic boards ;-)

--------------------------
Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?

You know he's Clie all the way or bust!
;-)

I imagine his stance is much like my own....STILL a #1 supporter of POS and vehemently anti-Winmob/MS. BUT we're tired of seeing our favorite platform dragged through the mud and mistreated over the past 5+ years, losing ground bit by bit the whole time.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX

Interestingly, whether "Palm OS" is dead or not in any sense that users care about is not a technical question you can answer from looking at technical diagrams--it's a social question. Did the Mac platform "die" with OSX? Technically, yes it did, but it's as alive and well as it every was to Mac users. That's because the new OS was written in a way that (a) developers bought into the new Cocoa API (or at least Carbon) and wrote apps for it, and (b) user were still able to run their "Classic" apps in emulated mode while the transition was under way. That's the model that ACCESS is trying to emulate with ALP.

So while you'll hear developers like me, or Marty or PMJoe saying that the Palm OS is dead now, we're really talking about the fact that there's practically nothing left of the nuts and bolts of Palm OS, not whether the platform in the broad sense (i.e. the whole ecosystem that made the Palm OS what it was) is going away. What happens to the platform will depend on how many devices ship and how much buy-in there is from the existing developer community.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Let's hope the ALP platform is tightly integrated and exceeds the sum of its many parts.

KultiVator

Could one of you developer folk tell me what MAX is, if not Cobalt? (or what could be salvaged?)

http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8378#119097

MAX represents a completely new mobile OS with its own set of APIs. I expect MAX to be like a stripped-down, more efficient version of WinCE or EPOC. It has basically NOTHING to do with Cobalt. Almost all traces of Cobalt will be expunged because the failures PalmSource experienced in trying to use scavenged bits and pieces of Cobalt to make PalmLinux proved it was not worth the hassle. You simply can't cobble together bits and pieces of code to create a modern OS. PalmSource was naive (or mendacious?) to claim they could. I'll let Dianne Hackborn's previous absurd comments on how supposedly simple it would be to salmage Cobalt speak for themselves. Access was not dumb enough to attempt to salvage a buggy incomplete OS and integrate this into their future core product. Failure of Cobalt would have bankrupted the company.

Access presented its plans for a new mobile OS a couple years ago and they would have started work on it at that time. The only thing the PalmSource purchse adds is a fourth arm (PalmOS) to what otherwise would have been a tripod MODULAR OS ("MAX, Linux distro, Java).

It's not like Access just thought of this yesterday! I think by acquiring PalmOS (an environment that is well known and easy to write for), Access is hedging their bets + buying insurance for their mobile platform that otherwise may have been shunned by carriers and cellphone makers if it came only with a brand new environment (MAX).

Secondly, they say that licesees will be able to cherry-pick which parts of ALP they'll include on their devices. Will they be allowed to go further and add their own bits and pieces as they want? If so, then Palm themselves might roll their own ALP and just call it PalmOS. Perhaps "PalmOS powered by ALP".

Afterall, they bought the name back. Might as well use it.

In theory, DogFoodOS is a fairly modular, Frankenstein-like OS. It seems feasible that Access/PalmSource could easily delete one or more of the 4 environments ("MAX", PalmOS, Linux, Java) within DogFoodOS without killing the OS. If a certain carrier/company does not want users to be able to install PalmOS or Java apps, these modules could be either removed or "locked down" by Access as part of a custom distribution. Access could also potentially create a simplified "feature phone OS" by paring down the modules. That would be an elegant way to expand the appeal of the OS to the broadest range of clients.

Access would be wise to tightly control licensees much like how Microsoft does with Winsows Mobile. Allowing licencees a lot of freedom to customise the OS has created many of the current problems with PalmOS (incompatibility, redundancy, instability). Of course, this all happened because Palm/PalmSource was too lazy/incompetent to come up with solutions to problems like the need for color screen support, hi res, expansion media, etc, so licencees were forced to fend for themselves, only to see Palm/PalmSource then "borrow" this code and fold it back into the OS (as the contracts permitted). The problems arose when different licensees came up with different ways of achieving a goal.

A little Paternalism can be A Good Thing for an OS maker to possess.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

See elswhere in this forum where I've pointed out the fallacy in that claim. (The OS is ALP, by the way, Skippy, MAX is just a UI layer within the OS.)

How do you define an "OS", Marty? While DogFoodOS is comprised of all of the parts Access has presented in the diagrams published to date, in a sense it represents 4 modular environments within the same platform. I am referring to each of these environments as an "OS" within DogFoodOS, even though it may be more technically correct to call each component an "application framework" or an "environment". MAX is touted as being the primary way users will interface with the Linux core.

>>>I expect MAX to be like a stripped-down, more efficient version of WinCE or EPOC.

Then you're either not reading, or not understanding, Access' description of ALP.

MAX is a UI layer that's a small part of a fairly large OS (by mobile standards, anyway.)

I think Access' descriptions are quite clear. Functionally, MAX and its underpinnings should be similar to the two advanced mobile OSes I mentioned. A major question that remains is what the actual User Interface for MAX will look like.

While Access' ideas are interesting, I believe they will arrive too late to stop Windows and less complicated Linux-based competitors from taking over the market. And I don't think PalmOS users are as faithful to the platform as Access is betting they are. "How much is the PalmOS platform worth?" is the $320 million question that won't be answered for a few years. With PalmOS being essentially a Frozen Caveman OS dating back to 2000 (PalmOS 4) and no prospects for a rewrite of PalmOS, I'm betting that Access will lose this bet. They should have just copied the PIM apps and PalmOS UI and used them as the foundation for MAX. And kept their $320 million in their pocket. Access got played for fools by "Slickster" McVeigh & Co.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

WinCE is hardly an 'advanced' OS, even today.

"Advanced" as in more advanced than most of the other crap out there. Which yes, isn't saying much...

A major question that remains is what the actual User Interface for MAX will look like.

Yes. I suspect it's a question that Access itself doesn't know the answer to just now.

Yes, MAX is sounding like more Cobalt-flavored, Wizard of Oz-style smoke and mirrors:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2006-February/msg00120.html

RE: gtk + ALP

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Jesse Donaldson"
To: "gtk"
Subject: RE: gtk + ALP
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 09:27:36 -0800

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone,

Wow, you don't waste any time, I just saw the press release myself!
Anyways, I am one of the architects for this new framework. I've been lurking on this list for a little while now, and I can try to answer some of your questions. Some things are probably confidential, but I'll be as open as I can about everything else. Obligatory disclaimer: Please note that I am *not* an official PalmSource spokesperson, so please don't expect that. If I start getting quoted in the press or anything, someone might tell me to stop talking.

As for whether MAX will run on X or Direct FB, I believe the internal debate continues. :-) We're investigating both, and see some advantages on either side. Many folks seem to be assuming that it will not run on X, mostly due to performance concerns, but I haven't seen the numbers from the people investigating that. Also, the demo at 3GSM *does* run on X, for what that's worth. I'd be curious to hear what you folks think about the matter. As an aside, the press release said "an optimized implementation" of GTK+, but we don't really know what "optimized" means yet. We've mostly been running GTK on desktop machines while the X & DFB folks do their various investigations.

For my part, I'd really like to participate in the GTK+ development community, and to do this with its support. My own goals are to make sure that anything we build on top of GTK+ is done in a manner that is consistent with it, and that any modifications we make are able to be accepted into the official distribution (see "optimized" above). One thing I would like to know is what you folks think of all this, and whether you are interested in making GTK+ the basis of a handheld applications platform. That's certainly our plan, but some changes might be necessary to get it working well on a handheld, and I don't know if you would be interested in taking them unless they were really needed on the desktop as well. I'd certainly like to work in harmony with the main distribution, but we could also consider working with a separate project like GPE if you are really focused on the desktop. I should probably also warn you that our schedule is quite short, and that may limit the degree of our cooperation at times. We'll do the best we can, though.

In case you're wondering about me, I'm a software engineer living in California in the US. I've been working on various flavors of Palm OS for nearly 8 years now, and have always loved working on frameworks best. That said, I am new to GTK+, and have relatively little experience on Linux as well (I'm a long time Mac guy). So if I seem naïve, please don't assume that I'm stupid, and feel free to help educate me if you are so inclined. :-)

Regards,
Jesse

-----Original Message-----
From: gtk-devel-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:gtk-devel-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Mathieu Lacage
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 3:32 AM
To: gtk
Subject: gtk + ALP

hi,

I recently stumbled upon:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4663700447.html which outlines the ALP platform. A GTK+/gstreamer stack is included in it and I see no X server. I assume this means that they plan to either port GTK+ to this platform's low-level APIs or use an existing technology such a DFB and
GTK+/DFB. Is there someone who has heard about this and who would be
allowed to confirm my guesses ?

regards,
Mathieu
--

*************************************************************************

Yeah, so the OS' future is now in the hands of some newbies that have been sent out to beg for handouts from the Open Source community? All riiiiiighty, then. Looks like Access/PalmSource should be shipping a real product pronto. Not.

>>>While Access' ideas are interesting, I believe they will arrive too late to stop Windows and less complicated Linux-based competitors from taking over the market.

It's not particularly complex, certainly not more so than any of the competitors, other than offering POSE as a wart on the side. It should have a smaller footprint than either Maemo or the handhelds.org distro.

You underestimate the asian anti-microsoft sentiment; Access' relationship with DoCoMo; Access' track record; and the complexity of the other linux offerings in this arena.

I can't say how Linux will do against Microsoft, over all, as too many uncertainties exist, but I still place Access' attempt high up the list of possible Linux plays, behind only Maemo -- which Nokia may never play into the telephony market.

I think trying to blend all of this in one and having a united UI is a bit much given the time constraints and limited codemonkey resources. PalmSource USA is currently in shambles and burning (while Pépé "Nero" Gassée fiddles and counts his millions of $$$ in blood money). PalmSource France has proven incompetent in the past in producing decent telephony stacks quickly. Is PalmSource China supposed to be the Saviour? Apparently so.

PalmSource USA is now pretty much redundant if the PalmOS component is just going to be an emulator. I wonder how much it would cost to hire the StyleTap crew, Picard and a few other talented developers? No doubt, shutting down PalmSource USA will save Access a ton of $$$...

Yes, I know everyone hates Microsoft and feels if it says "Linux" and doesn't have Microsoft's name on it, it must be better. Except once they get burned by Linux CRAP like Motorola did, I wouldn't be surprised to see manufacturers and carriers becoming a LOT more receptive to Microsoft.

I believe DoCoMo is just hedging their bets. If Access fails to deliver on schedule, DoCoMo isn't going to sacrifice their main business just because they have an investment in Access.

Regarding Access' track record: Have they EVER undertaken anything as big as NetFrontLinux? A history of successfully delivering a browser doesn't suddenly guarantee that they will be able to deliver an ENTIRE MULTIFACETED MOBILE PLATFORM on time. I think you're underestimating the number of things that can (and WILL) go wrong and are overestimating the patience of potential licensees. PalmSource did the same thing with Cobalt/PalmLinux and look what happened to them.

By the time Access' DogFoodOS is ready (2008!), hardware will likely have reached the point that a lot of sloppy Linux platforms can brute force their way onto cellphones. What advantage will Access have then?

Come on now, Marty. Do you REALLY believe Nokia doesn't have cellphone plans for Maemo? Puh-lease.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Is PalmSource China supposed to be the Saviour? Apparently so.

There has to be a fascinating story behind how PSRC's digesting of CMS went, and I hope one day to hear it. But no, I doubt anyone's relying on CMS for MAX -- Sunnyvale, after all, is hiring UI and UX folks.

Regarding Access' track record: Have they EVER undertaken anything as big as NetFrontLinux?

No. Given my own background is in large scale distributed systems before I went to PSRC, I find ALP to be a smallish project, but it is larger than what Access has done in the past.

However, project size isn't the interesting part of Access' track record. Read their history over and note what it is they have done well, several times. It is that which gives me reason to believe they'll do well this time. (Hint: Logo -> TCP -> Browser -> WAP2)

Come on now, Marty. Do you REALLY believe Nokia doesn't have cellphone plans for Maemo? Puh-lease.

I think Nokia is hedging their bets. If things go well for Maemo and Linux seems to make sense, then they'll be on it like a shot, and they'll own the Linux telephony space. But I'm not predicting that they'll go there, just yet.

To sum it up: (Caveat: The entire ALP project has unfolded since I left PSRC. I don't have any insider knowledge on this.)

I think Access will deliver ALP.

I think they'll be late. Before the ALP announcement I wasn't willing to offer an opinion, but since ALP is all stuff done since I left, I will: I think they're at least 15 months away from delivering a platform with MAX to licensees.

I think Access will eventually shift the focus of MAX development away from Sunnyvale to Tokyo.

I think Access will shift the Linux focus to Nanjing.

I find the whole idea of PSRC-France implementing telephony on top of openBinder to be hillariously ironic, but you'll have to find out why from someone in Montpellier.

I think Nokia is taking a go-slow approach to Maemo and waiting for the hardware to catch up, so that even late, Access will be able to deliver in a competitive time frame, in Asia.

I think FrankenGarnet was the last real release of PalmOS, and there ain't gonna be no mo'.

As I hinted at several months ago, there's still a wild card in the telephony Linux market, about which I know nothing, except its existance. That's Google and its electric sheep. They want to change the entire business of wireless communication, and other than living in a community they intend to light up with wi-fi RealSoonNow, I don't know anything about their plans.

May You Live in Interesting Times

What anti-Microsoft sentiment? The fact that Windows and the XBox don't sell well there? Show me a product in that class that DOES do well on the Asian market. Japan and Korea are saturated by their own products, making it practically impossible for foreign goods to break in. China loves cheap, free, nearly free, open source, and stolen. You have to when you're running on their economy. Likewise for India, and most of the minor countries of the region. High-margin western goods can't sell there, and for western companies, the margins aren't good enough to justify targeting them. People overestimate the attraction to alternate systems. Show me a Japanese citizen who, with the equivalent of $500 to spend on a video game, is going to choose the XBox over a local product. Microsoft can't get in because they're either out-competed, and because they price their products into the stratosphere, not because Asians engage in the same anti-Microsoft trash-talk favored by the U.S. geek chic.

They've got to at least have thought about it since they lost PalmSource. I suppose the question is cost and whether there are actually enough experienced people to hire. Given the reported difficulties Palmsource has had filling vacant positions, I doubt they'd be able to pull the resources together. Unless someone wants to correct me...

Tim Carroll
Your friendly customer service robot
(and big Treo fan)

It's not a pleasent choice. If I were them, I'd have 15 guys tucked away somewhere designing a relatively simple OS with a Palmesque UI and StyleTap-class app compatibility. Nothing too major, but capable of delivering a Palm OS experience plus some of the more advanced infrastructure that's needed to go forward: multitasking, better driver support, a more modular architechture, etcetera. It doesn't need to be a massive project--a simple piece of construction could go a long way.

I believe Palm is trying to come up with an alternate OS but obviously will fail. If it was simple to cobble together a decent mobile OS then Cobalt, PalmLinux, Maemo, etc would all already be rock solid OSes. Despite tens of millions of $$$ and SEVERAL years of development using scores of codemonkeys, all those OSes have yet to (and in some cases never will!) leave beta stage.

When Palm let PalmOS slip through their fingers they sealed their fate. Even if they had the resources to clean up PalmOS 5, that's still a dead end platform. Palm's destiny is to gradually fade away as JAWL (Just Another WinMob Licensee) and play out the string with a couple more PalmOS devices. The feature-packed Mindows Mobile smartphones and PDAs are going to eat Palm alive now that PalmOS is gone and the playing field has been levelled.

By the way, has Palm managed to make ANY significant improvements to the Treo 600 design they were given by Handspring? Given Palm's inability to innovate they'll be sitting ducks when the gloves come off in the 2006 Windows Mobile Smartphone CAGEMATCH.

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Whichever OS it runs, will be the one Palm is hitching its wagon to for future devices.

Tim Carroll
Your friendly customer service robot
(and big Treo fan)

Yes, but who is going to bother hunting to find it? A simplified main page for Palminfocenter with links to the main parts of the site would be more likely to achieve the critical mass necessary to be worth sustaining.

On a separate issue, I'm starting to think that the fact that PalmSource hasn't released any screenshots is a sign that they're not going to release them. Not until they've worked a few more things out concerning the MAX framework. I think it's great that they had a demo, but this has been a *major* course correction moving from Picasso to GTK+ and collapsing two frameworks down into one, all within 3 months. I'd be surprised if PalmSource really wants us to think that what they showed in Barcelona is indicative of what licensees will get way off at the end of the year.

From what I understand, they haven't yet decided things as fundamental as whether the framework is going to be built on top of X Windows or not. They used X for the demo, from what I understand, but I don't see it anywhere in the architecture diagram. I believe whoever drew up that diagram was thinking "no X Windows" when they wrote "GTK+ (optimized)".

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

You're probably right. Where did we get the idea that they demo-ed MAX rather than just the emulation of Palm OS? The press release is faster than the eye!

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

I'm encouraged that they've got Americans working on the UI. The UI is what the user interacts with and it's critical and while the US may be outsourcing everything they can, good UI skills are still strongest here. Of course, that doesn't mean that they actually *have* skilled UI folks at PalmSource. Remember, they haven't created an all-new UI since the original Palm UI and the people responsible for that are working at Palm, not PalmSource.

I suspect that MAX will end up making use of the ROME research. Whatever that is. It sounded like it was in its infancy when last we heard about it and we've never seen any actual drawn-up concepts of what it might look like. I'm glad to hear that they're rethinking the UI from the ground-up with a focus on the same zen/efficiency that the original Palm UI offered. IOW, I interpret all this to mean that this new UI will not look or act like the Palm UI in most respects but, *like* the original Palm UI, it will be designed from the ground-up to offer a zen-like experience (i.e., highly efficient).

That's a very good thing, IMO. Whether or not I'll agree with their assessment will have to wait until they actually release some mockups/flowcharts of the UI and how it will work.

Microsoft will still have a big advantage over them, though. They've got a robust RAD IDE in VS.NET. Whereas it looks like coding for ACCESS/PalmSource's platform will require low-level coding with C++.

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

Multimedia is in the pretty picture from PalmSource. It's rather vague compared to the diagrams we've seen for Cobalt, which showed MiniGL under the hood. Is the work the PalmSource developers were doing with OpenGL going the way of the rest of Cobalt?

IIRC, even with Cobalt 3D graphics support wasn't in the picture, but I could be mistaken. Personally, I'd prefer *not* to spend money on the hardware it would take to do 3d graphics, which would mean bigger batteries, bulkier handsets, shorter battery life, etc.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Will any future Netfront browsers come to Garnet, now that they are coding for GTK/Max on Linux?

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...

I HIGHLY doubt it'll be offered for devices released under the old PalmSource/Palm regime (what else is new?) but I would expect it to ship on any upcoming FrankenGarnet Treos/Palms.

Perhaps that's one of the reason the new POS Treos are now
rumored to be delayed to July (!) instead of April as previously rumored? Give 'em time to get a new browser tested on it as well as BB Connect?

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX

Really? Where did you see that?

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

But I would love for someone with some connections at Access to push them on this issue. Why *NOT* throw existing Palm OS users a bone and release a AJAX-capable (with multi-window support, too, please) up-to-date version of their browser for OS5? I would fully expect them to charge for it and they could make some money off of us. Don't they want our money? I suspect there's a pretty big market of users who would buy this. I would recommend that they put a couple of other extras/improvements and call it a Palm OS Plus pack or something. I've got my credit card ready. Come take my money!

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

Some considered CMS's customers to be very valuable, was Access wanting those? Sure.

So subtract CMS's value from the purchase price and it looks like PSRC was purchased for $120 million (a reasonable price).

Basically this is a response to those who say "Access didn't pay $300 + million to stop development on Palm platform." Your right they only paid about $120 million to take what they like about it. An open source business model has yet to be tested as a long term business model. Microsoft's business model has worked and businesses like it. They want to be able to go to someone and say fix it and trust that it can be fixed. What happens when there is a problem and business go to Access/PSRC and say "fix it" and they say we don't have the resources, but hopefully the "open source community will fix it. . . just trust the process?"

Would it have to have been filed in the same way PSRC elected not to file their final Quarterly report since they were being aquired? If so then you can understand why they didn't want many people knowing about the purchase.

It is extremely unlikely that Access bought more than a few percent of PSRC in the run up to the purchase without filing with the SEC, as that's a very bad no-no, and the price run up was investigated and no problem found.

The feature phone PalmOS is killed, er, I mean, delayed, according to this announcement. The modular nature of ALP should make it possible to derive a feature phone from it, though. Just six months later.

May You Live in Interesting Times

I don't consider any of that "well-behaved". I've simply tossed too much $ away registering Palm software over the years that became broken one or two devices later while STILL within OS 5.x! From here on if it's not released by Astraware/Splash Data/Dataviz/Normsoft I am VERY reluctant to pay good $ for it.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX

It'd be great if there was some kind of a preview release that would enable developers to work with the new framework and make comments on it before a final version was released to the licensees. I think PalmSource could get some very useful information from this and it could really help with the developer buy-in they need for this platform to be a success.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

http://corp.handango.com/PressRelease.jsp?siteId=1&jid=F7AE3AX9AXD3D1X7C9C8X18F128F4336&CKey=1_PRESSRELEASE_PR021406a

The death of other POS licensees must have simplified things immensely for POS developers, but the move to this new platform and the uncertainly surrounding it can not be very encouraging. I'm sure most are seriously thinking about migration strategies.

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...

So what do you think, internet stranger I've never met? ;)

Tim Carroll
Your friendly customer service robot
(and big Treo fan)

Hm. Tough one. Since it's a cow-orker, being extremely unpleasant probably isn't your best option.

Honesty is probably the best policy, but failing that, take her aside and tell her privately that your religious beliefs bar you from seeing movies—or maybe just movies which don't star Scientologists, i.e. Tom Cruise or John Travolta—on the grounds that cinema steals one's soul and replaces it with engrams.

"Five Faces of TVoR" all along...I knew it. I've been posting here since '02 and lurking since '00--I'd recognize that rapier-sharp wit anywhere (that's a compliment, guys).

*grin*

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX